March 31, 2015

The Holy See yesterday waded into the row about the controversial appointment of Monsignor Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid as Bishop of Oserno in Chile, an appointment made despite protests from sex abuse victims that Bishop Barros had covered up for Chile’s most notorious paedophile priest.

In a move that hardly seems in keeping with the spirit of the Francis pontificate, the Holy See defended the appointment.

“Prior to the recent appointment of His Excellency Monsignor Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid as Bishop of Oserno, Chile, the Congregation for Bishops carefully examined the prelate’s candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment.”

Protest

The inauguration on March 21st met with unusual opposition, with some 650 people turning up to protest at Oserno Cathedral dressed in black. Many local priests boycotted the ceremony, and more than 1,000 Catholics wrote to Pope Francis, asking him to reconsider the appointment.

Those opposed to Bishop Barros point out that he was a protege of Father Fernando Karadima, one of Chile’s most influential and respected priests. In 2011, at the age of 81, Fr Karadima was sanctioned by the Vatican itself for paedophile crime, being ordered to retire to a life of “penitence and prayer”.

Victoria police are investigating the third suspicious church fire in Melbourne within the past week.

Two separate fires broke out at St Mary’s church in Dandenong at around 2am on Wednesday, causing extensive damage to the 151-year-old church before fire crews were able to extinguish the flames.

The church is linked to Kevin O’Donnell, a priest who has been accused of a number of sexual assaults on children. O’Donnell, who is now deceased, was never charged over the alleged offences.

Early on Monday morning, another suspicious fire destroyed St James church in Brighton, with St Mary’s church in St Kilda suffering damage on the same day due to suspected arson.

Priest Ronald Pickering attended both of the churches in the 1970s and 1980s. Pickering, who died in 2012, fled to the UK in 1993 and did not face prosecution over a number of sexual abuse offences stretching back to 1960.

A Brazilian priest known for conservative views on moral issues and disapproving in his sermons of kissing and sex has been suspended for sending a nude selfie to an apparent mistress on his mobile phone.

"Father Alfredo Rosa Borges has been suspended from his duties," and faces ex-communication, a diocesan spokesman at Campos de Goytacazes, a northern town in Rio state said.

Father Borges is seen posing naked in front of a mirror holding his cell phone in pictures posted last week via smartphone service Whatsapp which have since appeared in online media.

Rio daily O Dia reported he had admitted sending suggestive messages to a woman who later posted them but denied having an intimate relationship with her.

"An investigation has been opened but the photo comprises a transgression for the Church," the bishop of Campos, Roberto Francisco, told O Dia.

Who is burning down Melbourne's churches? Police investigate link to past paedophile attacks after a suspected arsonist torches THREE churches this week

By SARAH MICHAEL FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

Police are investigating a string of suspected arson attacks on three Melbourne Catholic churches with links to paedophile priests.

Emergency services were called to a fire at St Mary's Catholic Church in Dandenong, at 2am on Wednesday, and police are treating the blaze as suspicious.

The church is said to be the site of child sex attacks perpetrated by now-deceased convicted paedophile Father Kevin O'Donnell.

Police are investigating whether the blaze is connected to two separate suspicious blazes that were lit on Monday at St James Catholic Church in Brighton and St Mary's Catholic Church in St Kilda, where paedophile priest Ronald Pickering served as minister.

Former Vancouver Olympics CEO John Furlong told reporters at a news conference today that the "unimaginable nightmare" he lived through while under suspicion of abusing his former students has finally ended.

Saying he just wanted to move on with his life, Furlong also announced he would end his defamation lawsuit against Georgia Straight writer Laura Robinson, who published the initial allegations of abuse
However, Robinson, who is suing Furlong for questioning her journalistic credibility, said in a statement she has no intention of dropping her court action.

"At the time the Georgia Straight article was published, I wasn't even aware of the allegations made by Grace Jessie West and the male whose case was dismissed on Monday," she said.

"My story was based on serious allegations made by numerous individuals, including allegations contained in eight sworn affidavits, and I stand by the work I did. I feel that the dropping of Mr. Furlong's lawsuit against me today is recognition that my reporting on the serious allegations was responsible and appropriate."

"My suit is about an attack on my integrity and professional conduct as a journalist. It has never been about these three cases. "I look forward to my June 15, 2015, court date. I am pleased that the lawsuit against me has been dropped. I stand by the research and work that I did."

2 accusers didn't attend Furlong's school

Furlong's lawyer, Claire Hunter, told the news conference two of Furlong's accusers, Grace West and Daniel Morice, never attended Immaculata Elementary School in Burns Lake where the abuse was alleged to have occurred.

VANCOUVER -- As a young man who immigrated from Ireland, John Furlong channelled his "highest respect" for First Nations by volunteering to teach at an elementary school in northern British Columbia.

Forty years later, he ensured four B.C. First Nations were full partners when he headed the Vancouver Olympics, saying his push for their participation was a source of personal pride.

So it was with every instinct he fought anger starting two years ago, when "deep and horrible, hurtful and highly damaging" allegations of sex abuse were levelled against him by three aboriginal people, he told reporters on Tuesday.

Furlong declared the "almost unimaginable nightmare" had finally ended a day after the dismissal by a B.C. Supreme Court judge of the last of three civil lawsuits that have held his family, business interests and public profile hostage.

A third Melbourne Catholic church linked to a paedophile priest has been set alight in a suspected arson attack in as many days.

Two separate fires were lit at St Mary's Church on Foster Street in Dandenong - one in the main church at the altar and the other in a storage room containing cloaks - about 2am on Monday.

It took firefighters 90 minutes to gain control of the blaze, which caused extensive heat and smoke damage to the 151-year-old building.

Police are investigating whether the fire is linked to two other suspicious fires at Catholic churches in Brighton and St Kilda East on Monday. Fire gutted the 123-year-old St James Church in Brighton on Monday morning, but the blaze at St Mary's in St Kilda East caused little damage.

Both churches are linked to Ronald Dennis Pickering, who moved from parish to parish around Melbourne abusing boys between 1958 and 1993, when he fled to his native Britain. He died there in 2012, having never been charged.

A Brazilian clergyman has been suspended for sending a naked selfie picture to his alleged mistress via his cell phone.

"Father Alfredo Rosa Borges has been suspended from his duties," AFP quoted a diocesan spokesman of Campos de Goytacazes municipality, located in the northern area of Rio de Janeiro State, as saying on Tuesday.

He added that the Brazilian priest, who is known for his conservative views on moral issues, also faces excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church.

In the picture, which has been circulating on online media since it was posted last week, Borges can be seen posing naked in front of a mirror.

The O Dia daily reported that the priest has admitted to sending the picture, but denies having a relationship with the recipient.

By Jolene Toves
The Concerned Ca
tholics of Guam continue in their efforts for transparency from the Catholic church by hosting informational meetings in villages such as Yigo, Agana Heights, and Dededo. According to CCOG vice president Dave Sablan the meetings are meant to share the information they have gathered through their investigation of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary and their efforts in seeking financial transparency for the Archdiocese of Guam.

He says that he along with organization president Greg Perez unofficially met over a week ago with members of the Archdiocesan Finance Council to include president Sonny Ada. While Ada would not provide comment on the meeting stating it was a personal conversation, Sablan says during the meeting the CCOG requested for financial documents such as the budget plan for the Archdiocesan Annual Appeal. He says that they are concerned with how the funding collected will be spent and also want information on who the formators for the Redemptoris Mater Seminary are so that they may evaluate if the instructors are qualified to form young men into priests. He stresses that the issue is there is no transparency.

A priest accused of having an affair is to go on retreat “in an effort to repair the damage and hurt that I have caused”.

In a statement issued on Tuesday evening Fr Ciaran Dallat said it is his “sincere hope is that with this support I will be able to resume the exercise of priestly ministry”.

The move comes in the wake of claims made in a newspaper earlier this month that the 52-year-old cleric, from St Peter’s Cathedral in west Belfast, had a relationship with a 49-year-old businesswoman.

Up until tonight, the Diocese of Down and Connor had declined to comment in detail on on the allegation. The woman claimed the affair began in Belfast in 2012 after the pair went on a group pilgrimage.

A Vatican spokeperson's dismissive statement today defending Pope Francis's appointment of Chilean bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid deepens the crisis of credibility that the pope is facing. What's at stake here is nothing less than papal accountability. Francis has pledged to discipline bishops who fail to protect children, and the Chilean public, along with members of his own abuse commission, are determined to hold him to his promise.

Today's statement is a disingenuous attempt to shift blame for this decision from the pope to the Congregation for Bishops. Pope Francis made the appointment and must own it. He should begin by explaining his deliberate choice to ignore multiple victims' testimony that Barros witnessed their sexual abuse by Karadima. Concepción archbishop Fernando Chomali, who discussed Barros with Francis in person last month, told the New York Times that the pope knew about these serious allegations. "The pope told me he had analyzed the situation in detail and found no reason” to rescind the appointment, Chomali said.

This response evokes not the compassion and honesty of Pope Francis but the coldness and dismissiveness of Cardinal Bergoglio. As Buenos Aires archbishop, he ignored repeated requests by anguished victims for intervention in their cases. While his colleagues in the US and Europe issued apologies, implemented reforms, and met with victims, he stayed largely silent on the issue of clergy sex abuse, except to issue an implausible denial that he had ever handled an abusive priest. His only known action was to commission a behind-the-scenes report to Argentine Supreme Court judges that impugned the credibility of victims of a criminally convicted priest – an action eerily consistent with the disregard the Pope has shown survivors’ witness in the Barros/Karadima case.

To regain public trust in his reforms, Pope Francis must explain why he chose Barros despite the victims' testimony, and he must immediately rescind the appointment. Barros must be suspended from ministry while his alleged wrongdoing is investigated.

Going forward, the pope must apply the lessons of the Barros fiasco to appointments, as well as to disciplinary reviews like the Finn investigation, which has been pending for many months. The leaders selected by him in the future must have records that indicate the moral capacity to execute the measures that the pope himself has invoked repeatedly -- 'zero tolerance' and accountability.

It is noteworthy and troubling that neither zero tolerance nor mandatory reporting is included in the universal policy framework – the CDF's 2011 Circular Letter – that Pope Francis said in early February he wants to be "fully implemented." The provisions in the framework are weak, leaving far too much to the individual bishop's discretion. Little good shall come from the Pope's efforts if he holds bishops – or himself – to such a low standard. For the Pope in the Barros/Karadima case, accountability begins at home.

Founded in 2003 and based near Boston, Massachusetts, USA, BishopAccountability.org is a large online archive of documents, reports, and news articles documenting the global abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church. An independent non-profit, it is not a victims' advocacy group and is not affiliated with any church, reform, or victims' organization. In 2014, its website hosted 1.5 million unique visitors.

Enoch Powell, one of the most controversial British politicians of the twentieth century, has been implicated of involvement in child sex abuse dating back to the 1980s, the British press has reported.

Powell’s name was handed to police in 2014 by Bishop of Durham Paul Butler, an event which was only made public on Sunday.

“The name Enoch Powell was passed to Operation Fernbridge on the instruction of Bishop Paul Butler,” the Church of England said in a statement on Monday, referring to the police operation into suspected Westminster child abusers.

Powell, who died in 1998, was a divisive and firebrand anti-immigrant politician. His name is the latest in a string of senior parliamentarians accused of being involved in alleged Westminster child sex rings in the 1980s.

The scandal has shaken Britain’s political establishment to its core. ...

Nothing would surprise me in terms of cover-ups or files being destroyed or lost. It stinks, I have to say,” says Peter Saunders, CEO of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, speaking to The Anadolu Agency.

Commenting more specifically on the accusation leveled against the deceased anti-immigrant firebrand, Saunders adds: “Powell’s been dead a long time and I have not heard his name being implicated before, but anybody who is implicated and who does have a credible allegation made against them – whether they are alive or dead – I think they should be investigated to the full extent of the law.”

With regards to Heffer’s argument that Powell was a man of high probity, Saunders said, “Many child abusers throughout our history have been upstanding members of the community and they have a dark side… I am not saying that is the case with Powell, because I do not know.”

“I think any credible accusation should be pursued and investigated for the purposes of both the victims and for future child protection because this issue of abuse of children has been swept under the carpet, has been kept at bay, has been denied for far too long,” he said.

The Vatican defended the appointment of Bishop Juan Barros Madrid on Tuesday, after accusations that the bishop helped cover up sex abuse prompted criticism of the appointment by Pope Francis.

As the National Catholic Reporter notes, the brief, 19-word statement represents a rare comment from the Vatican on an appointment. “The Congregation for Bishops carefully examined the prelate’s candidature,” the statement from Holy See Press Office Vice Director Passionist Fr. Ciro Benedettini reads, “and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment.”

The criticism of Barros centers on long-standing allegations that he helped to cover up the sex abuse of his then-superior, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, whom the Vatican in 2011 found guilty of sexually abusing minors. Karadima, 84, is now living cloistered in “penitence and prayer.”

Barros has denied the allegations, as the NCR reported, and has said he “never had knowledge or imagined the serious abuses that this priest [Karadima] committed with his victim.”

Former Vancouver Olympics CEO John Furlong spoke in solemn and measured tones as he told reporters at a news conference today that the "unimaginable nightmare" he lived through while under suspicion of abusing his former students has finally ended.

Saying he just wanted to move on with his life, Furlong also announced he would end his defamation lawsuit against Georgia Straight writer Laura Robinson, who published the initial allegations of abuse that eventually formed the basis of the three lawsuits against him.

The last of the lawsuits was dismissed Monday by a B.C. Supreme Court judge after the complainant, Daniel Morice, failed to appear in court.

In the nearly three years since he was accused of abusing former students while he was a teacher in British Columbia during the late 1960s, Furlong has repeatedly and vigorously denied any wrongdoing.

Furlong was suing Robinson for a story she penned for the Georgia Straight in 2012, which contained allegations that Furlong was abusive toward native students at Catholic schools while a teacher in northern B.C. four decades ago.

Furlong made the announcement at a press conference Tuesday morning. Vancouver Sun reporter Lori Culbert is covering the story.

Furlong had accused Robinson of carrying out a “vicious campaign” to destroy his reputation. He also labelled her “a long-time activist” who “masquerades as a responsible journalist.”

John Furlong, the former CEO of the Vancouver Olympics, has dropped a defamation suit against journalist Laura Robinson, saying the dismissal of three sexual abuse cases against him have proved his innocence.

But Ms. Robinson, who in 2012 wrote an article claiming Mr. Furlong physically and verbally abused students at an aboriginal school in 1969-70, says she’s going ahead with a countersuit against him.

“My suit is about an attack on my integrity and professional conduct as a journalist. It has never been about these three cases,” Ms. Robinson said Tuesday in an e-mail. “I look forward to my June 15, 2015, court date. I am pleased that the lawsuit against me has been dropped. I stand by the research and work that I did.”

Mr. Furlong sued her after the article appeared, and she launched a countersuit soon after, saying that in responding to the article he had defamed her.

Following those events three people, including a woman quoted in Ms. Robinson’s article, came forward with allegations that Mr. Furlong had sexually abused them at Immaculata Roman Catholic Elementary School in Burns Lake, B.C., in 1969-70.

Jehovah’s Witnesses bureaucrats are using legal technicalities to try to deny child sex abuse victims their day in court. Shame on them. They’re squandering any moral authority they may have had by ducking and dodging in court like desperate criminals determined to use any and every legal maneuver possible to save their own reputations and careers.

Church officials have won a partial victory. A judge has granted their requests to have portions of a child sex abuse and cover up lawsuit tossed out. We hope that ultimately they will fail and that Miranda and Annessa Lewis will be able to expose the callousness and recklessness of Jehovah's Witness officials in a trial.

Already, by their courage, these sisters have warned thousands about the predator who hurt them, Norton True. We are very proud of these courageous young women. And we hope they realize that by breaking their silence and filing this suit, they have already won in the most important sense: they have taken back the power that was stolen from them in childhood. We are confident that because these sisters are speaking up, others who were assaulted as kids have been inspired to speak up too.

Finally, we hope that anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by True or cover ups in churches will call police, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

It’s cruel because elevating Bishop Juan Barros Madrid rubs salt into the wounds of two sets of victims: the dozens who were sexually assaulted by Fr. Fernando Karadima and the tens of thousands who once had high hopes that Francis might actually do more to stop clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

But arguably, the greater harm is not to already wounded victims. It’s to still vulnerable children. Why? Because when Francis rewards those – like Barros - who conceal child sex crimes, he encourages others to conceal child sex crimes. And that leads to more child sex crimes.

The sad, simple and undeniable truth is that Catholic bishops and priests world-wide look at Barros’ promotion and now realize that despite all the pledges, policies, protocols, promises and panels, this pope is no different than any who came before him.

Francis is more likeable than most. He’s far more PR savvy than most. He’s masterful at using symbols and gestures. He says more of the right things.

( One exception, though, came a year ago this month: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/religion/secrets-of-the-vatican/pope-francis-defends-churchs-response-to-clergy-sex-abuse/ )

But when push comes to shove, he does what his predecessors have done, time and time and time again – move complicit colleagues up the clerical ladder no matter how egregiously they have helped predators and hurt kids.

Would it have hurt Francis to withdraw Barros’ appointment, even temporarily? Nope. Would it hurt him now to say “Let’s investigate these serious and credible charges against Barros?” Nope.

Now more than ever, it’s crucial that members of the pope’s abuse panel go to Rome and confront Francis about this hurtful promotion. And it’s crucial that those who have courageously confronted church officials about this stunningly callous and hurtful move keep speaking out.

(Reuters) - The Vatican and Italy are close to reaching an agreement to share financial and tax information in the aim of cracking down on money-laundering and other illicit behaviour, a senior Vatican official said on Tuesday.

The deal, which the official said could be announced as early as this week, is part of Pope Francis' efforts to clean up the finances of the Vatican. The official asked not to be named, because he is not authorised to discuss the accord.

The Vatican has long been criticised by international financial organisations for providing a tax haven for well-connected Italians.

In particular, the Vatican bank for decades allowed many Italian citizens to hold bank accounts. That practice, which was in violation of the bank's mission to manage money for the Church, helped individuals evade taxes and launder cash, Italian law enforcement officials say.

Californians grow up in an atmosphere of reverence for Father Junipero Serra—there is, however, a different perspective among the descendants of the land’s original people. Their viewpoint will be difficult for many to accept, but open your heart and mind as you read excerpts from an open letter the leader of our area’s tribal band recently sent to Pope Francis. I met the author when he spoke to the Gilroy Historical Society, and I am tremendously impressed by his intellect, his sincerity and his wisdom. The letter begins:

His Holiness Pope Francis,

My name is Valentin Lopez and I am the Chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band [descendants of local native peoples taken to Missions San Juan Bautista and Santa Cruz].… We are writing…to voice our disbelief and objection to your intent to canonize Franciscan Friar Junipero Serra.

Lopez describes the Amah Mutsun’s optimism when Francis was selected as Pope, and details letters they wrote to the Roman Catholic pontiff about their ancestors’ experiences and the aftermath, such as “….life expectancy was less than two years at some missions….Tribal members continue to suffer from the impact of cumulative emotional and psychological wounding”, how psychiatrist Dr. Donna Schindler explained “historic trauma”, and Bishop Emeritus of Sacramento Quinn said, ‘…
although the language of these letters is sometimes very intense, he supports the basic message’.

The Amah Mutsun find, in Fr. Serra’s own writings, how “….the violence, intimidation and terror which was sponsored and ordered by Fr. Serra clearly set the policy and foundation for all future brutal acts at the missions.” They strongly believe Serra has a large degree of responsibility, “…for the death of approximately 100,000 California Indians and the complete extermination of many Native tribes, cultures and languages.”

Lopez cites contemporaries of Fr. Serra such as, “Father Boscana, who wrote…’the Indians of California may be compared to a species of monkeys’”; Father Mariano Payeras, who wrote the Church, “…had to come up with an alibi when people started asking where all the Indians had gone.” because ‘All we have done to the Indians is consecrate them, baptize them and bury them’; and how in 1809 a commander ordered soldiers to massacre 200 women and children who wouldn't march to Mission San Juan Bautista. “These women and children were cut into pieces with sabers.” And “Fr. Antonio de la Conception Herra wrote in 1799 that ‘The treatment of the Indians is the most cruel I have ever read in history. For the slightest things they receive heavy floggings, are shackled, and put in the stocks, and treated with so much cruelty that they are kept whole days without a drink of water’.”

The ex-bouncer pope is pushing back. A contest of wills seems to be going on between the papal sex abuse commission head, Boston Franciscan, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, and the “wannabe” Franciscan Pope Francis, with his team of Cardinal Angelo Sodano protégées. The pope’s spokeman has now (3/31/15) said that the Vatican is confident the correct decision has been made in appointing Juan Barros as Bishop of Osorno, in Chile. The amazing Vatican statement said: “The Congregation for Bishops carefully examined the prelate’s candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment, …”. At least the statement did not allude to the pope’s “infallibility”, as a previous related statement appeared to do.

Once again, there is no indication the members of the pope’s almost farcical “abuse commission” were consulted on this “doubling down”, further indicating their seeming irrelevance to the pope on the fundamental issue of bishops accountability for their sex abuse misdeeds. Why have an irrelevant commission, Pope Francis? Many of the commission members are well informed and sincere, not some clerical hacks too often appointed to papal commissions.

Members of Francis’ Vatican “go slow” commission have criticized sharply Barros’ appointment, as well as their exclusion from the decision process as indicated in NCR interviews last week and below.

Only celibate men living in the childless Vatican bubble could have made this bad decision, and then arrogantly by a written statement declared it to have been made objectively. Pathetic and outrageous, really. Catholic parents will not have it!

This statement is the “death knell” of the pope’s flawed public relations commission, it would appear. The curtain is rising on the real Francis, no?

US political leaders of both parties are shamefully continuing to give the pope a pass on the child abuse scandal, likely to try to gain political advantage in next year’s presidential and congressional elections. Courageous UN leaders and political leaders in other nations like Australia, the UK, Chile, Ireland, et al., are challenging the pope and his subordinates’ indefensible records, but leaders like the USA’s Obama and Clinton, and even Catholics like Boehner, Biden, Peter King, Nancy Pelosi, Jeb Bush, Rubio, Guiliani, Cuomo, Christie, Jindal, Panetta, Santorum, Jerry Brown, et al., look the other way too often on priest child abuse and bishops’ cover-ups. I was a classmate of Guiliani and King and went to the same law school as Obama. I know they know better and deeply believe the others do as well!

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The appointment of a controversial bishop in Chile was made after a careful review found no “objective reasons” to prevent Bishop Juan Barros from taking over the Diocese of Osorno, the Vatican press office said.

The bishop had been accused of covering up for a priest who was known to have committed sexual abuse; some 3,000 demonstrators gathered outside and inside the Osorno cathedral March 21 to protest his installation as bishop.

“The Congregation for Bishops carefully examined the prelate’s candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment,” said the Vatican’s March 31 statement.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican on Tuesday strongly defended its appointment of a bishop in Chile despite protests by critics who have accused him of covering up sexual abuse.

Juan Barros was installed on March 21 as new bishop of Osorno as supporters holding white balloons and opponents carrying black ones shouted at each other during the ceremony in the city's cathedral.

The appointment outraged some parishioners, national legislators and abuse victims who said Barros had protected one of the nation's most notorious pedophiles and asked Pope Francis to rescind it.

Deputy spokesman Father Ciro Benedettini, in the Vatican's first official comment on a case that has divided Chileans, said the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops had "carefully examined the prelate's candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment". ...

SNAP, a U.S.-based victims group, said that by defending Barros' appointment, the pope was "standing by his cruel and hurtful promotion of a bishop who faces credible allegations of enabling, ignoring and watching child sex crimes".

The Vatican has issued a rare statement of support for a bishop in Chile who has been accused by abuse victims of covering up for a notorious paedophile priest, in a case that is sure to infuriate critics who say Pope Francis is straying from his commitment to ending the church’s legacy of abuse.

Amid a growing controversy over Bishop Juan Barros, the Holy See confirmed on Tuesday that the congregation for bishops had vetted Barros and found no “objective reason” to stop his appointment to the southern Chilean diocese of Osorno.

Barros has been accused by victims of turning a blind eye to abuse that was committed against them by Barros’s former mentor, Reverend Fernando Karadima, a priest who the Vatican found guilty of molestation in 2011.

Karadima is now living a cloistered life of “penitence and prayer” in a convent in Chile.

In some cases, Karadima’s victims have alleged that Barros not only helped to cover up the crimes decades ago, but that he had observed the abuse.

(Reuters) - The Vatican on Tuesday strongly defended its appointment of a bishop in Chile despite protests by critics who have accused him of covering up sexual abuse.

Juan Barros was installed on March 21 as new bishop of Osorno as supporters holding white balloons and opponents carrying black ones shouted at each other during the ceremony in the city's cathedral.

The appointment outraged some parishioners, national legislators and abuse victims who said Barros had protected one of the nation's most notorious pedophiles and asked Pope Francis to rescind it.

Deputy spokesman Father Ciro Benedettini, in the Vatican's first official comment on a case that has divided Chileans, said the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops had "carefully examined the prelate's candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment".

Several lay members of an international commission the pope set up to advise him on how to root out sexual abuse by clergy also criticized the appointment.

ROME — Reacting to widespread criticism of the appointment of a bishop in Chile linked to the country’s most notorious abuser priest, the Vatican issued a terse statement on Tuesday insisting the move was “carefully examined” and there were no “objective reasons” to stop it.

“Prior to the recent appointment of His Excellency Msgr. Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid as bishop of Osorno, Chile, the Congregation for Bishops carefully examined the prelate’s candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment,” it said.

The statement was issued in the name of the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, a Passionist priest who serves as vice director of the Vatican’s Press Office. The Congregation for Bishops, currently led by Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, is the Vatican department that recommends bishops’ appointments to the pope.

Tapped by Pope Francis for the position in Osorno on Jan. 10, Barros has become a deeply controversial figure in Chile because of his ties to the Rev. Fernando Karadima, a former mentor who was found guilty by the Vatican in 2011 of sexual abuse of minors and sentenced to life of “penance and prayer.”

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Catholic officials admit that child sex abuse allegations against a priest who worked for a Catholic school board in Toronto have been deemed “credible.” We hope this disclosure will prod other victims to come forward and get help.

From 1976 to 1987 as a religious brother and 1995 to 2004 as a priest, Father James Roth worked at a Catholic high school in Toledo “as a faculty member/administrator, and from 1995 to 2004 assisted with weekend masses in Michigan,” according to a church announcement.

We call on Bishop Thomas Christopher Collins to disclose each site where Fr. Roth worked. We urge him to personally visit each site and beg victims to speak up and start healing. In nearly every case, bishops do the absolute bare minimum and sit passively back, behind their desks, hoping more victims don’t call. Instead, they should be acting like the shepherds they profess to be, and aggressively reaching out to anyone who may have been hurt and may still be suffering in shame, silence and self-blame.

We are deeply grateful to the brave victim of this cleric for finding the courage to expose this predator. We urge every single person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes - – to summon the strength to call police, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican is defending Pope Francis' appointment of a Chilean bishop despite allegations from victims that the prelate had covered up for a pedophile priest.

A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said Tuesday that before Monsignor Juan Barros was named to be bishop of Osorno, Chile, the Holy See's Congregation for Bishops "carefully examined the prelate's candidature and didn't find objective reasons to preclude the appointment."

The bishop's recent installation triggered nationwide political opposition, violent protests in the cathedral and a boycott by many of the diocese's priests.

A former Chilean military chaplain, Barros has insisted he didn't know about the abuse until reading 2010 news reports. Barros was a protege of the priest, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, sanctioned in 2011 by the Vatican for sexually abusing minors.

Brandon Milburn, who worked as a church employee at Real Life Church in Valencia, pleaded to seven counts of statutory sodomy with two victims who were 11 years old at the time, according to court documents.

He pleaded guilty in court earlier this year and received his sentence Monday.

A 28-year-old former Valencia man was sentenced to 25 years in prison in Missouri for the rape of two boys that took place from 2007-09, officials said Monday.

Milburn was working as an intern outreach minister in St. Louis from October 2007 to September 2008, when the alleged crimes occurred, said Sgt. Matt Redmond of the St. Louis Police Department.

“He was a college student doing an internship at this church, where he had contact with some people in a youth group or youth ministry,” Redmond said.

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Yesterday, a Louisville native and former church employee was sentenced to 25 years in prison for molesting boys in Missouri. We urge his former colleagues in his Louisville congregation to aggressively seek out others who he may have assaulted.

In January, Brandon Milburn pleaded guilty to seven counts of sodomy with two kids under the age of 12 in a St. Louis County courthouse. From October of 2008 to April of 2009, he worked at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville.

It’s crucial that law enforcement officials know as much as possible about Milburn’s crimes. He’s young, so he will likely be released from prison. But he could be charged again for other crimes he has committed, if only others with information will come forward.

It’s also crucial that every person he hurts be found and helped. And it’s crucial that any of Milburn’s church supervisors or colleagues who may have concealed his crimes also be prosecuted.

So we beg anyone who has seen, suspected or suffered Milburn’s crimes – or cover ups by church staff – to call police and prosecutors in Missouri immediately.

The Congregation for Bishops did not find 'objective reasons to preclude the appointment', according to statement

The Vatican has said that it is confident the correct decision has been made in appointing Juan Barros Bishop of Osorno, in Chile.

A statement on the controversial Chilean bishop was released by the Vatican earlier today. “The Congregation for Bishops carefully examined the prelate’s candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment,” it said.

The statement comes after Bishop Barros was barracked by hundreds of black-clad protesters during his installation at Osorno’s Cathedral of St Matthew last week.

The Holy See has defended its decision to appoint as bishop a Chilean prelate accused of covering-up child abuse.

The appointment of Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid as bishop of Osorno has been questioned by two members of Pope Francis' safeguarding board and a third, Peter Saunders, has said he may have to quit unless Pope Francis withdraws the appointment. The bishop’s installation Mass on 21 March was cut short amid loud protests by crowds who were angry at his handling of allegations regarding abuser Fr Fernando Karadima, 84.

“Prior to the recent appointment of His Excellency Msgr. Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid as bishop of Osorno, Chile, the Congregation for Bishops carefully examined the prelate’s candidature and did not find objective reasons precluding the appointment”.

VATICAN CITY The Vatican has responded to public outcry against Pope Francis’ naming of a new bishop in Chile accused of covering up sexual abuse by saying the bishop’s candidature was “carefully examined” prior to his appointment but no “objective reasons” were found to preclude it.

Marking a rare reaction to public criticism against a bishop’s appointment, the Vatican press office released a 19-word statement Tuesday in three languages regarding Bishop Juan Barros Madrid.

Installed March 21 as head of the diocese of Osorno, Chile amid protests in the cathedral, Barros is accused by Chilean clergy sexual abuse survivors of covering up abuse by Fr. Fernando Karadima when Barros was a priest.

Members of Francis’ own Vatican commission on clergy sexual abuse have also criticized the appointment, saying in NCR interviews last week they are concerned and surprised at the pope’s decision.

The Vatican’s statement Tuesday, made by Holy See Press Office Vice Director Passionist Fr. Ciro Benedettini, does not address any specific criticisms.

Less than a week after one Fox 9 employee pulled a hangar out of his suit on air, another station anchor is making a surprising move. Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal announced today that Tom Halden is leaving KMSP-TV Fox 9's morning news show after five years in the anchor seat.

His destination? Director of Communications for the W.D.O.E. The Pioneer Press confirmed that Halden's last day at Fox 9 will be April 10. According to the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, he will start his new position on May 6, and will be responsible for The Catholic Spirit, the Archdiocesan website and social media footprint, and media relations.

May 6 is, of course, the date for the rescheduled Clergy Study Day so, alas, it seems that the delay was for no other reason than to provide an opportunity to introduce the new head of Communications. Then again, as Alexander Pope- a once persecuted Catholic himself- would remind us, 'Hope springs eternal'.

The trial of a former priest on charges of molesting a girl in the 1990s in Canberra has heard the man admitted in a police interview to touching the girl, but that the incidents were not of a sexual nature.

Edward Evans, 85, is facing six charges of committing acts of indecency against the girl when she was aged between 10 and 13.

Most of the allegations relate to incidents in his house, often when other people were nearby.

Evans is alleged to have touched the girl inappropriately several times, including when he was sitting beside her at a dining table.

The alleged victim head earlier told the court that during the first incident Evans allegedly put his hand inside her pants when other people were nearby.

The Royal Commission has now been in operation for more than two years. We have completed the public hearings for 25 case studies which in most cases have been concerned with the failure of institutions to manage their affairs to adequately protect the children in their care. We have looked at churches, religious schools, and state run institutions. We recently looked at issues in relation to out of home care. But we have many more and varied tasks to complete.

One of the obligations in our Terms of Reference requires the Commissioners to consider what “institutions and governments should do to address, or alleviate the impact of past and future child sexual abuse … including, in particular, in ensuring justice for victims through the provision of redress by institutions, process for referral for investigation and prosecution and support services.

Justice for victims is an elusive concept. In the civil context redress schemes providing modest money compensation without the need to prove a breach of a duty of care are commonly believed to be appropriate. Otherwise in the civil context there are difficulties in defining the content of a duty of care. Determining the individuals or institutions who must accept the obligation of fulfilling that duty can also provoke animated discussion. Whether common law damages or some more confined financial recompense is appropriate are matters the Commissioners are considering as part of our discussions about redress for survivors.

Justice for victims in the criminal context raises multiple and complex issues different from the issues in a civil context. The Royal Commission is addressing many of those issues through external research, round tables and our own policy development. Prof Arie Frieberg, Hugh Donnelly and others have already completed significant work for us. The issues extend across the appropriate range of criminal offences, the reporting of criminal acts, their investigation and their prosecution. The latter requires us to consider the trial process, the legal rules which control it, in particular joint trials and tendency evidence, directions to juries and appropriate sentencing outcomes.

Former Catholic priest David Rapson has been found guilty of sexually assaulting six boys in his care at Victorian schools, in trials that can only now be reported.

Rapson was in February found guilty by a County Court jury of five counts of rape and one charge of indecent assault, but details of that trial – and his name – were suppressed because of trials that were to follow.

He was subsequently found guilty of another five charges of indecent assault across second and third trials, although the jury in the second trial could not reach a unanimous verdict on one charge of indecent assault.

That charge went before a fourth jury, which on Tuesday found him not guilty of that offence.

Judge James Parrish lifted a non-publication order on Tuesday afternoon, permitting media to report the verdicts.

Police are investigating whether the victims of a paedophile priest started two fires at separate churches on the same day.

Fire almost destroyed the 123-year-old St James Church in Brighton on Monday morning, but another blaze at St Mary's in St Kilda East caused little damage.

Both churches are linked to Ronald Dennis Pickering, who moved from parish to parish around Melbourne abusing boys between 1958 and 1993, when he fled to his native Britain. He died there in 2012, having never been charged.

It is unclear if the Catholic Archdiocese plans to increase security at the other churches where Pickering was a minister: St Theresa's in Essendon, Sacred Heart in Warburton, and St Peter's in Clayton. A spokesman for the archdiocese said security had not been increased at those churches, but had at St Patrick's cathedral in the city.

A police spokeswoman confirmed the St Mary's fire was suspicious and had caused minor damage to a door, and that the cause of the St James fire was yet to be determined.

A FORMER Brighton vicar has told how child abuse victims confided in him in the 1980s about a satanic paedophile ring that included Tory MP Enoch Powell.

Dominic Walker, who served as a vicar in Brighton during that period, said long-serving Labour MP Leo Abse and former home secretary William Whitelaw were also named as members of the Westminister paedophile network.

Mr Walker, who retired as Bishop of Monmouth in 2013, passed on the information to the Bishop of Durham, the Right Rev Paul Butler, who is responsible for ‘safeguarding’ the Church of England.

Although there was no evidence to support the claims, the church authorities sent the information to Scotland Yard’s investigation into alleged establishment involvement in child abuse.

A Church of England spokesman said of the claims: “When allegations are made against individuals, it is quite proper to pass those allegations to the police and statutory authorities, without any investigation on our part and regardless of our own views.”

BELLOWS FALLS >> The attorney representing the Bellows Falls congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses and the New York-based headquarters of the Jehovah's Witness faith in a case of alleged sexual abuse said a judge's partial granting of a motion to dismiss makes him confident the entire case will get dismissed.

Pietro Lynn, of Lynn, Lynn & Blackman in Burlington, told the Reformer that U.S. District Court Judge J. Garvan Murtha decided it was appropriate to dismiss certain legal theories raised by Annessa Lewis, who is suing the Bellows Falls congregation and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc., which she claims ignored reports that she and her sister were sexually abused by a congregation member more than 20 years ago.

"We are very pleased with the court's ruling," Lynn said on March 26. "We expect that once the facts of the case are known that the court will dismiss the rest of the case."

The head of an Australian royal commission into child sexual abuse says he has uncovered enough material to justify public hearings on more than 1000 institutions where child sexual abuse has been alleged.

Justice Peter McClellan, who leads the five-year royal commission, told a child abuse conference in Auckland today that institutions were already responding after hearings on 25 institutions so far.

"We are driving change, for example, in the whole daycare/after-school care sector in Australia," he said.

"We are driving changes in the rules in all boarding schools. We are driving change, starting at the very top, in the whole sporting movement connected with the Olympic movement in Australia.

"How do I know that? Because the secretary of the Australian Olympic Committee rang me up as we were finishing a public inquiry into swimming in Australia and said, 'I need your help, I don't have the right processes to manage."'

The conservative Christian school responds to blistering report on how it told rape victims to repent

March 30, 2015 6:00PM ET

by Claire Gordon @clairedon Google+

Thousands watched in the campus chapel, and countless more tuned in to the live Web video earlier this month as the president of Bob Jones University addressed the school's handling of sexual assault reports.

Like many of those with ties to the private school nicknamed the "fortress of faith," Julia had been waiting decades for this moment.

After watching the video for just a few minutes, she vomited.

"I couldn't stop throwing up," said Julia (not her real name), who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity so as not to be linked to her alleged rapist. "It shocked me. There was nothing in me that prepared me for the response that came."

March 30, 2015

Tom Halden, a long-time fixture at KMSP, will leave the station to become director of communications for the Archdiocese of St. Paul. The announcement was made Monday in the newsroom.

Halden has been with the station since 2003. HIs most recent duties included co-anchoring the early morning news on weekdays and co-hosting Fox 9 Buzz. Halden is a native of North St. Paul.

No replacement has been named.

Halden takes the place of Anne Steffens, another former anchor, who had only served in the position for a little over a year. She is reportedly leaving to spend more time with family. It was a rocky period when the archdiocese faced an unprecedented wave of clergy abuse lawsuits.

Tom Halden, a weekday morning news anchor on FOX 9, has been named director of communications for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He plans to begin May 6.

A member of Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville, Halden has worked for Twin Cities’ FOX affiliate KMSP-TV since 2003. He anchors the station’s morning news from 4:30-6 a.m. and co-hosts FOX 9 Buzz, which airs at 9 a.m. weekdays.

Prior to FOX 9, Halden was an anchor for WSBT-TV in South Bend, Indiana, from 1997 to 2003, and KAAL-TV in Austin from 1996 to 1997. From 1995 to 1996 he was a reporter in Alexandria.

While at FOX 9, he initiated and produced the weekend segment “Faith Talking,” which aired from 2006 to 2009.

From Father Charles V. Lachowitzer, Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia

We are pleased to announce that Tom Halden has been named as the new Director of Communications for the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, effective May 6. Tom will oversee The Catholic Spirit, as well as our web and social media efforts and media relations.

Tom brings with him 20 years of media experience and a lifelong devotion to the Catholic faith. His roots are in North St. Paul, and he and his family are members of Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville. We were blessed to have many strong candidates for the position. I am thankful Tom has chosen to share his many gifts with the Church.

Sexual assault allegations against John Furlong, former head of the Vancouver Olympics organizing committee, were dismissed by a B.C. Supreme Court judge today after the complainant Daniel Morice failed to appear in court.

The former VANOC CEO has vigorously denied any wrongdoing since he was accused of abusing former students while he was a teacher in British Columbia during the late 1960s.

The dismissal of Morice's complaint is the third time allegations against Furlong have been set aside.

In December, a woman who claimed she was abused by Furlong while he was a teacher in Burns Lake, B.C., dropped her lawsuit against Furlong.

During the nearly two years he has been facing sexual abuse allegations, John Furlong, the former CEO of the Vancouver Olympics, says he has battled depression, watched his family suffer humiliation and seen his once lucrative public speaking career ended.

But in a ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court of British Columbia tried to give him back some of his dignity when it threw out the last of several abuse claims made against him in a civil suit brought by three former students of aboriginal schools in northern B.C.

Justice Elliott Myers dismissed the claim of Daniel Morice after he failed to show up for what was supposed to be the start of a lengthy trial and the court heard abusive, obscenity-filled phone calls Mr. Morice made to defence counsel.

“Mr. Morice did not even attempt to prove his claim,” said Justice Myers, who awarded special costs to Mr. Furlong because of the “egregious, reprehensible conduct” of Mr. Morice.

“Obviously, I’m very pleased that today’s over,” Mr. Furlong said briefly outside court. “It was a very emotional day.”

He said he was going immediately to meet with his family and promised a detailed statement on Tuesday.

A man who has accused former Vanoc CEO John Furlong of sexually assaulting him nearly 40 years ago abruptly hung up the phone in the middle of a telephone conference with a Vancouver judge on Friday.

The display of rudeness prompted B.C. Supreme Court Miriam Gropper to dismiss Daniel Morice’s application that he be allowed to make an application by telephone to adjourn his trial on Monday.

The judge said that Morice, a resident of Prince Rupert, will have to make an appearance in court if he wants to seek an adjournment of his trial, which is scheduled to get under way Monday.

The decision came after lawyers for Furlong appeared in person in court Friday, applying to dismiss Morice’s application for a telephone conference Monday on several grounds, including that it might be necessary to cross-examine him on his claim that he is employed and unable to attend court for that reason.

Morice gave the judge the name of a person he said was a supervisor with the ministry of highways as evidence of his employment and said he had no way of getting to Vancouver on Monday.

D.C. City Council member David Grosso (I-At Large) has introduced the Childhood Protection Against Sexual Abuse Amendment Act of 2015 that would eliminate the statute of limitations for the recovery of damages arising out of sexual abuse that occurred when a victim was a minor.

The bill creates a two-year window for individuals whose claims were previously time-barred.

“There are few actions more depraved than sexual violence or abuse against children,” said Grosso.

“Because most victims of childhood sexual abuse do not come forward until much later in their adult lives, we need to ensure that the statute of limitations is not a barrier to justice. A person who victimizes a child should never be able to hide behind time.”

There’s a new judge and a new prosecutor in the criminal child sex case against Fr. Joseph Jiang. Judge Dennis Schaumann has replaced Judge Jack Garvey, who recused himself. Prosecutor Molly Wayne has replaced Anne Kratky. Fr. Jiang, meanwhile, is still repped by Paul D’Agrosa, who’s come under fire for being part of the “old boys’ club,” a cozy group of lawyers who profit from “fixing tickets” and multiple overlapping roles as judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers in municipal courts. (D’Agrosa is a judge in Olivette and U. City and prosecutor in Arnold.)

The legal system in Australia needs to learn from psychologists or risk inflicting grave injustices on child sex assault victims, the chair of the child sexual abuse royal commission says.

In a keynote address in Auckland to the 14th Australasian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect on Tuesday, Justice Peter McClellan will say judges are working off what they thought they knew about how "genuine complainants" behaved and how memory works.

"Assumptions that turned out, with the benefit of empirical research, to be erroneous," he says.

He will trace the historical legal approach to sex assault cases and cite relatively recent warnings by judges about delayed reporting affecting credibility and the fallible nature of human recollection making evidence about childhood events particularly susceptible to error.

Justice McClellan says these legal propositions were put without a scientific source, yet they became embedded in the fabric of the common law and proved difficult even for parliament to dislodge.

SNAP, the Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests, is the largest international support group for women and men who were sexually abused by religious authority figures -- i.e., by priests, preachers, ministers, deacons, and others. It is a nonprofit organization that is independent of any religious group and that carries no connection to any church or denominational entity.

Trauma psychologist Peter Levine wrote that “trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside us in the absence of an empathetic witness.” I often think that one of the most powerful healing graces of SNAP is that it provides a forum through which clergy abuse survivors can do for one another what faith communities – and often even our own families – could not bring themselves to do. It provides a forum through which we ourselves can bear witness to one another’s trauma. So, whether or not you can make it to the conference, I hope you’ll consider connecting with a SNAP group in your area.

Enoch Powell’s official biographer has hit out at the Church of England after it alleged that the former MP was involved in “satanic sex abuse”.

Powell was on a list of several high-profile former MPs that was handed to police by Paul Butler, Bishop of Durham. Another name on the list was Labour’s Leo Abse who piloted the decriminalisation of homosexuality through parliament in the 1960s.

The Daily Mail reports that Butler was given the politicians’ names by Dominic Walker, former Bishop of Monmouth, who heard the allegations while counselling in the 1980s.

However, Simon Heffer, Powell’s official biographer, has written a strongly-worded condemnation of the allegations, describing the Church of England’s actions as “disgraceful” and “remarkably un-Christian”.

The film "The Culpable" by Gerd Schneider is about three priests whose friendship and careers are shattered by accusations of child abuse. The German film director has an insider's view on Church hierarchy.

The film "The Culpable" (orginal title: "Verfehlung") tells the story of three priests, Jakob, Dominik, and Oliver, who are good friends. Then all of a sudden everything changes: Dominik is suspected of child abuse. How do the three priests deal with the accusations?

Gerd Schneider's debut film, released in Germany last week, has already received several awards at film festivals. DW met the director, who studied to become a priest in 1998 before turning to film studies.

DW: What inspired you to do "The Culpable"? Why did you choose this topic?

Gerd Schneider: That happened a while back. At the beginning of this century, child abuse by members of the Catholic Church wasn't a very hot topic in Germany yet. In the United States, there had been different scandals and the outrage was intensified by attempts to cover up the cases. At that point, the German bishops were still laughing. They were sure this couldn't happen here. Not that they wanted to hide something; they genuinely thought there had not been the same extent of abuse here. But in 2006 the stories started trickling out.

At that time, I was a Second Unit Director on a film production. That's when I suddenly got this idea: I had the image of a prison chaplain accompanying a colleague, a friend, who would have landed in prison. How should he deal with the situation? How do you deal with uncomfortable truths? That got me started. For my first film, I wanted to tell a story with substance. It's always a major challenge for a filmmaker.

Sexual assault victims' testimony has been called into question by judges ignorant of relevant psychological research, the chairman of the royal commission into child sexual abuse says.

In a rare and frank appraisal of Australian judges to be presented on Tuesday at an international conference in New Zealand, Justice Peter McClellan said, "Judicial assumptions about human behaviour are still, in relatively contemporary times, informing the content of the law."

While some of these assumptions "may be sound", he says it is difficult to know whether they are correct, given the law largely prevents judges from consulting "authoritative professional material" on "ordinary human behaviour".

Judges had historically said things in sexual assault trials that revealed their ignorance of relevant psychological research, including that allegations of sexual abuse should be doubted if victims' reports were delayed, and that children's memories of abuse were unreliable, Justice McClellan said.

Kochi: An Italy-based Catholic religious congregation for women has set a new trend in the Indian Church by monetarily helping a former member settle down in life.

“The Agatha Sisters were generous enough to give her 12 Lakhs (1.2 million) rupees,” Father Paul Thelakat, spokesperson of the Syro-Malabar Church who mediated between the former nun and the congregation, told Matters India on Monday.

The decision to pay the former nun, who uses the one name of Anitha, was taken at a conciliation meeting on Sunday held at St Joseph’s Church, Snehapuram Church Road, Aluva, in Kerala.

Anitha’s immediate relatives and Jose Maveli, chairperson of Janaseva Sisubhavan, an orphanage where the former nun had taken refuge, also attended the meeting.

As per the terms of the settlement, Anitha has to return her religious dress and claims to be a member of the congregation. she had refused to give up her religious life after she was expelled from the congregation.

She had earlier threatened to hold a sit-in outside her convent – the Sisters of St. Agatha convent in Aluva near Kochi – which had refused to take her back on her return from Italy on February 20.

Kochi:
A Catholic nun who was expelled from her congregation after she reportedly resisted sexual abuse by a priest and registered complaint against him is planning to intensify her agitation.

The woman, who was known as Sr. Anita in the convent of Sisters of St Agata in Ernakulum district, is now housed in the Janseva Sisubhavan, an orphanage in Aluva.

She is all set to launch an indefinite hunger strike in front of the Sisters of St Agata Convent at Thottakkattukara, the Indian Express said on Tuesday.

Anita, a native of Kannur district, became a nun in 2007 and took up a teacher's job at the Providence Convent High School in Pachore, Madhya Pradesh. According to her, the congregation authorities turned hostile towards her after she complained about an alleged attempt of sexual harassment by a priest in 2011.

A meeting will be held today to investigate the way the catholic church dealt with concerns about a former priest in Norfolk who's been jailed for child abuse.

Father Anthony McSweeney was sentenced on Friday for abusing a boy at a care home in London.

The church will meet police and other local authorities to look into why McSweeney was moved from a parish in Essex to one in Norwich in 1999 after his cleaner found indecent videos of teenage boys at his home.

Former congregants and members of the community on Sunday protested across the street from Sterling's Calvary Temple church in an effort to raise awareness to practices they say have gone on for decades behind its closed doors.

The protest, which close to 100 people attended, was sparked after a March 25 Loudoun Times-Mirror article in which two women said they were physically and sexually abused for years by members of the church's leadership and teachers.

The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office has launched an investigation into at least one woman’s claims of sexual abuse. Last week, detectives asked the public to come forward if they had any information about the case.

Since the article published, at least two more people have come forward to the Loudoun Times, alleging they were physically and sexually abused while attending Calvary.

LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — On Palm Sunday, protesters gathered outside a local church that’s been previously criticized for its finances, among other things.

About 70 to 80 former church members and supporters held signs across from Calvary Temple in Sterling. Former members have made claims of sexual, physical and verbal abuse in connection with the church.

The Northern Virginia Pentecostal church has been investigated in the past, and is under investigation again. “We can confirm that one particular case was re-activated as additional information arose. Additional information is being looked into right now,” Liz Mills, spokeswoman for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, told the Loudoun Times.

The sheriff’s office released a statement on March 26 confirming the ongoing investigation of alleged sex abuse at the church. Meanwhile, detectives are asking anyone with information regarding the investigation to call 703-777-0475.

Almost 100 people protested Sunday across the street from a Sterling church that they claim is really the home of a cult that has allowed misdeeds including sexual abuse.

Members of the group held signs and were encouraged by the honking of horns from passing cars. They said that Senior Pastor Star R. Scott operates a controlling ministry at Calvary Temple that doesn’t allow criticism and attempts to besmirch the character of anyone who speaks up.

When asked if the church wanted to respond, a representative of the congregation said that Calvary Temple would issue a statement soon.

The church has faced scrutiny before—there are websites and at least one Facebook page that denounce it—but the controversy surrounding it has increased in recent days, and the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office last week announced that it was investigating and wanted to speak with anyone who might have information.

“We understand the concerns of the public, and we want to ensure everyone that we take all allegations of abuse seriously and these crimes will be investigated to their fullest extent,” Loudoun Sheriff Mike Chapman said in a prepared statement Thursday that noted that the agency’s Juvenile Sex Crimes Unit was looking into the matter.

KOCHI:Probably for the first time in the history of the Church in Kerala, a nun who was allegedly expelled from her congregation after she raised complaints of sexual harassment against a priest would be provided with compensation of Rs 12 lakh.

The move is being considered as a victory for Sr Anita, who sought refuge in an orphanage in Aluva and was waging a battle against the Church and the Sisters of Agata, the congregation to which she belonged. The decision to award the compensation was taken at a conciliation meeting held at St Joseph Church, Snehapuram Church Road, Thottakkattukara, Aluva on Sunday. The meet was attended by Syro Malabar Church spokesperson Fr Paul Thelakkattu, Sr Anita’s immediate relatives, and Jose Maveli, chairman of Janaseva Sisubhavan, where the expelled nun sought refuge.

As per the terms of the settlement the nun has been asked to give up her robes. Though she was expelled from the congregation Sr Anita had refused to give up her religious life. The tussle between Sr Anita and the congregation began in 2011 after she complained against a priest who attempted to sexually abuse her. The alleged incident happened while she was serving as a teacher in Panchore in Madhya Pradesh.

March 29, 2015

The destruction of St James Church in Brighton would be a relief to many former parishioners because of its history of sexual abuse, actress and former parishioner Rachel Griffiths has told 774 ABC Melbourne.

The heritage-listed church was destroyed in an early morning blaze that took hours for fire crews to bring under control.

Ms Griffiths said when she heard the news of the fire, she went to visit a friend who lives a couple of doors down from the church.

"I was quite elated, like many of my generation, when I heard the news this morning," she said.

"It's always been a difficult building for us to drive past because there's been so much tragedy and complicated feelings, I guess.

"We've all attended many funerals of boys that we now know were abused by [Father Ronald] Pickering ... and other perpetrators in the parish - at the actual church that it occurred in."

The Metropolitan Fire Brigade said the cause of the fire could not yet be established.

The Church of England has told Scotland Yard that William Whitelaw, the former home secretary, and Enoch Powell were accused of being members of a political satanic abuse ring.

The allegations of the politicians’ involvement in child abuse emerged during counselling by a vicar of a youth in the 1980s. Leo Abse, a long-serving Labour MP, was also named.

Although there was no evidence to support the claims, the church authorities felt compelled to send the information to Scotland Yard’s investigation into alleged establishment involvement in child abuse.

Martin Luther, five hundred years ago, quietly began at a German cathedral his revolt over Vatican scandals. Now outraged parents have reignited his revolt at a Chilean cathedral amid chaotic scenes of thousands of protesters. Many shoved their way into the cathedral, as Juan Barros, personally known to and appointed by Pope Francis, was installed as Bishop of Osorno, not far from Francis’ Argentina. Fr. Alex Vigueras, Chilean provincial of a major religious order, warned that a “small fire” like this appointment could become “a catastrophe with irreparable losses.” Almost half of Chile’s parliament and an ex-president reportedly even tried to get Francis to reverse his decision on Barros. Will this be a precedent for US protests of the pope or pleas on behalf of defenseless children from President Obama or political leaders like John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi and Jeb Bush, when Francis visits the USA in a few months?

It seems that the Vatican papal monarchy has learned little since Luther’s time. Barros is accused by a top US communications executive, Juan Carlos Cruz, and several other credible victims, of having been present during their abuse by, and of shielding, Fr. Fernando Karadima, a charismatic, high-profile Santiago priest — and serial abuser of youths— from investigation.

Five years ago, Angelo Sodano, likely the most influential cardinal since popes became “infallible” in 1870, arrogantly dismissed at a televised Easter Mass, in front of approving ex-pope Benedict, the priest abuse scandal as so much “petty gossip”. Please see Sodano’s infamous “petty gossip” video here,

Sodano at times was “de facto” pope during John Paul II’s incapacity. He is still Dean of Cardinals and oversaw the election of Pope Francis. His longtime protégée, Pietro Parolin, is now No. 2 as Secretary of State, and will likely be the next pope. Sodano’s former secretary now heads up Francis’ aimless and futile Family Synods, that are are a poor substitute for the general ecumenical council that Francis should convene if he were serious about permanent reforms. After over 1,500 years of rule by general councils, in 1870 popes succumbed to the “infallible pope curse”. One pope rules and makes decisions often out of fear — of sex, women, secularism or just plain accountability. The next pope then fears to change his predecessors’ mistaken policies, while he “infallibly” makes more mistakes. And many brainwashed Catholics still buy this “papal bull”!

Just before Francis’ election, Jason Berry, a “non-brainwashed” Jesuit educated award winning investigative reporter, in the NY Times urged Pope Benedict XVI to right some of the wrongs of the recent past by forcing out Cardinal Sodano, in Berry’s words, as “… the man who, more than any other, embodies the misuse of power that has corrupted the church hierarchy. …”. Please see, here,

Barros had as a seminarian been secretary to the late Chilean Cardinal Fresno, a position in which, says Cruz reportedly, “he knew everything going on in Chilean church. The triumvirate of power in the 1980s was Karadima, Cardinal Fresno and Archbishop Angelo Sodano” — the Italian papal ambassador, who was openly supportive of the military dictator Pinochet’s regime. Sodano’s Chilean service overlapped in part with Pope Francis’ Jesuit leadership during the nearby Argentinian military dictatorship.

Four years before he died in 1998, Enoch Powell did me the honour of asking me to write his biography. I spoke to almost everyone alive who knew him. When he died, I had unique access to a vast collection of private papers, including numerous intimate letters. If there is anyone alive other than Enoch’s widow and daughters who knows more about him than I do, I’d like to meet him.

I never detected the slightest whiff of scandal about Powell. His probity in personal and financial matters was rock solid. When on Saturday evening a fellow journalist told me of the allegations made by the Church of England, my first instinct was to laugh: but that soon changed into utter outrage when I realised he was serious.

The Church has publicly accused Enoch of being involved in ritual satanic abuse on hearsay, without the slightest evidence. They might as well accuse him of having been a war criminal or an armed robber, for there would be as much truth in either allegation.

The appalling slurs are just like those made against 91-year-old Lord Bramall, a D-Day veteran and former chief of defence staff, whose homes in London and North Yorkshire were gratuitously raided by police recently on the back of an unspecified allegation of a sexual nature dating back to the 1970s.

British parliamentarian Enoch Powell has been named in a probe into an alleged paedophile network.

The late Tory MP, who is regarded as one of the most divisive politicians of the 20th Century, was named to Scotland Yard by the Bishop of Durham amidst claims of 'ritual satanic abuse'.

The Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, contacted police after Powell's name was passed to him by a former Bishop of Monmouth, Dominic Walker, who first heard the allegation when he was a vicar counselling young adults in the 1980s.

Mr Walker is believed to have warned the Right Rev Butler that at the time he was told of the claims against Powell, unsubstantiated allegations that an unknown number of MPs had been involved in satanic cult-type abuse involving children, were widespread.

The claim is being examined by Operation Fenbridge, one of a number of police probes into 'Establishment paedophile rings'.

A Church of England spokesman confirmed the reports stating: "The name of Enoch Powell was passed to Operation Fenbridge by one of our safeguarding team on the instruction of Bishop Paul Butler."

Former MP Enoch Powell has been accused of ‘ritualistic satanic abuse’.

A probe into an alleged paedophile network at the heart of the British Establishment was handed the late Tory MP’s name by the Bishop of Durham, the Mail on Sunday reports.

In a further development Scotland Yard investigators are to be given access to secret files held on MPs in the House of Commons archives as they hunt for evidence on suspected abusers, including former Liberal MP Cyril Smith.

The Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, contacted police after Powell’s name was passed to him by a former Bishop of Monmouth, Dominic Walker.

He first heard the allegation when he was a vicar counselling young adults in the 1980s.

Enoch Powell, the Conservative anti-immigrant firebrand, is being investigated as an alleged member of a claimed Westminster paedophile network after his name was supplied to police by a senior Anglican bishop.

The name of the late MP, one of the most divisive politicians of the late 20th century, was provided to Scotland Yard after a clergyman came forward with claims from the 1980s relating to ritual satanic abuse.

Mr Powell, a maverick politician who achieved notoriety with his so-called Rivers of Blood speech decrying migration to Britain, is the latest senior Parliamentarian to be made the subject of police inquiries into an alleged Establishment sex rings.

The Metropolitan Police has several ongoing investigations relating to claims against suspected abusers, including the former Liberal MP Cyril Smith. Detectives are also investigating allegations against former Home Secretary Leon Brittan.

The Independent understands that the claims against Mr Powell were passed to police by the Right Reverend Paul Butler, the Bishop of Durham, more than a year ago, but that they have only now been made public.

Edinburgh, Scotland, Mar 29, 2015 / 02:35 am (CNA).- Scottish Archbishop Leo Cushley of St Andrews & Edinburgh is launching a new promo film across social media as he unveils his plans for the future of the Catholic Church in his part of Scotland.

“It’s a wee movie with a big message – bringing the joy of the Gospel to a contemporary Scottish society in desperate need of the healing love of Jesus Christ,” Archbishop Cushley said March 29.

The plans are set out in a Pastoral Letter entitled We Have Found the Messiah, which is being launched in all churches in the archdiocese on Palm Sunday.
“My big message is that the renewal and, yes, growth of the Catholic Church in our part of Scotland is very possible, but only if we create vibrant Christian communities gathered closely around Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist – that’s where Christ is most truly and powerfully present in our contemporary world,” the archbishop explained.

The Archdiocese of St Andrews was rocked by scandal in 2013 when Cardinal Keith P. O’Brien resigned after admitting to making homosexual approaches to other priests in the 1980s. Following his resignation, Pope Francis personally selected Leo Cushley – then a senior Vatican diplomat – to take over as archbishop.

Aristocrats 'feel entitled to abuse people' says son of the 10th Earl of Sandwich who was raped by his father as a child

By CHRIS PLEASANCE FOR MAILONLINE
28 March 2015

Those from noteworthy families often feel entitled to abuse young people according to Robert Montagu, the son of the 10th Earl of Sandwich who was abused by his own father as a boy.

He made the comments at the Oxford Literary Festival while discussing his book, A Humour Of Love, in which he reveals years of abuse, including a single rape, carried out by father Victor.

Mr Montagu said that, during his years at Eton, rape was common, adding that people with 'entitled backgrounds' were given 'more opportunities' to be abusive towards children.

In a report for The Times, he said: 'People from noteworthy families do feel a sense of entitlement.
'It is true that people from an entitled background have more opportunities, maybe circumstances have made it more likely that they will abuse.

LIMA, Peru — Perhaps none of Pope Francis’ vaunted reforms of the Catholic establishment has been as urgent or necessary as his unveiling of a “zero tolerance” policy towards pedophile priests.

For decades, child sex abuse scandals, from Poland to the pontiff’s homeland of Argentina, have dogged the church. Victims have gone public and priests have been defrocked and jailed, yet still new allegations of this vile crime continue to surface.

Since being named pope in March 2013, Francis has made all the right noises, describing pedophilia as satanic and unveiling a new high level commission reporting directly to him in a bid to draw lessons and prevent future abuses.

Yet those fine words and gestures have all been called into question by the pope’s controversial appointment of a Chilean bishop accused of covering up the activities of one of the Catholic Church’s most notorious child abusers.

Earlier this month, amid chaotic scenes as hundreds of protesters shoved their way into the cathedral, Juan Barros took up his post as Bishop of Osorno, a sleepy provincial capital 600 miles south of Santiago.

As I wrote yesterday, on Thursday the Chrism Mass of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis was held at the Cathedral of Saint Paul. However, it has not been easy for me to find a priest who was there, or at least is willing to admit he was. Reports from others in attendance suggest that the presbyteral turnout was noticeably low, although an exact number is not available. The rarely reliable Catholic Spirit claims that 'scores of priests' renewed the promises made at their ordination (alas, dear Spirit editors, diocesan priests do not take vows, they make promises). This is itself interesting, considering that the total presbyterate at any given moment should be around 400, and a 'score' is only twenty.

The Catholic Spirit goes on to report that Archbishop John Nienstedt made a point of addressing the ongoing sexual abuse crisis and consequent bankruptcy in his homily, stating

'I fear a certain fragmentation and fracturing has been created between Catholic institutions and even parishes and the office of the archbishop. This division can be summed up in the saying, ‘I’ll support my parish but I will not support the archdiocese'.

Actually, I am pretty sure it can be summed up by saying, 'I'll support my parish, but I will not support this Archbishop', but I appreciate that at least the Archbishop is finally acknowledging that things aren't all rosy. This is a contrast to his statements last July, for instance, in which he claimed to 'want to be that bridge between people and God, and I don't want to have anything interfere with that,' and 'I think the people that know me well know I've got their best interests at heart'.

Teachers, social workers and other front-line staff should be trained how to spot faith-based child abuse, according to experts concerned at the rising number of children being abused by parents with skewed religious views.

Two leading female academics in the field have joined forces with the Victoria Climbié Foundation – named after the eight-year-old Ivorian girl tortured and murdered by her guardians in 2000 – in calling for a national framework to help reduce the incidence of such cases, which are on the rise and harder to detect than other forms of abuse.

According to the Education Select Committee, an increasing number of children in the UK are being harmed in the belief that it “will get the devil out of them”.

Dr Lisa Oakley and Dr Kathryn Kinmond, from Manchester Metropolitan University, were approached by a government working group that is devising a national action plan to tackle child abuse linked to faith and belief. The pair also met with the Churches’ Child Protection Advisory Service and safeguarding specialists Chanon Consulting as they began what will be a two-year project to identify the principal characteristics of faith-based abuse.

I just received a text message from a man, now in his early 50s, who was anally raped by a "Christian" brother when he was 12 years old. He said: "I can't go on any more. That's me done".

This very brave survivor, who has been facing his demons all these years, has also been fighting tirelessly for justice for all survivors of child sex crimes, especially for adequate financial support and redress. Like thousands of others, he has, at great personal risk, opened his heart and soul and told his story to the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the responses by non-government organsiations into child sexual abuse and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Last week, on the first day of a three-day public hearing at the Royal Commission into redress schemes for victims of child sex crimes, many of this man's hopes were dashed and he felt his years of dedicated work had come to nought.

In January, the Royal Commission published a consultation paper on possible types of redress schemes for child sexual assault victims. According to the commission and many other organisations, state and territory governments and victims and their families, the most effective and fair approach would be delivered by a national redress scheme that would be run by the federal government, but, on the whole, paid for by all government and non-government institutions where the crimes occurred. The Royal Commission also proposed that the federal government be a "funder of last resort" for those victims who would be sidelined and ignored because their school or institution doesn't exist any more.

MOBILE, AL (WALA) -
On Friday a Mobile County judge ruled Father Johnny Savoie, a priest at St. Pius X Catholic School, must appear for a deposition regarding past sexual misconduct allegations. Furthermore, according to the order, the Baldwin County District Attorney's Office will be required to turn over any statements the Archdiocese sent to its office in reference to those past sex allegations, which allegedly happened in 2005.

This, after attorneys representing four parents in a bullying case against St. Pius X found a statement made by Savoie to his parish last year, admitting that he was being accused of the sexual misconduct with a 16-year-old boy in 2005. He denied the allegations in that statement, according to court documents.

Judge Sarah Stewart ruled in Friday's court order that those past sex allegations are relevant to the bullying case, where four parents are suing the school, saying school administrators, including Savoie, did not stop their children from being bullied.

"The allegations before the Court are that Father Savoie, a party, either engaged in, or tolerated, the abuse of a child while acting as a principal of the school, also a party," wrote Judge Stewart. "Therefore, the Court finds the 2005 allegation relevant for the purposes of limited discovery."

TAMPA — With plans moving forward to open a new Catholic high school in the place where he says he was abused decades ago by a priest, Barry Roche is ambivalent.

“I wish them the best,” the 71-year-old retired police officer says. “But in the back of my mind, it still says, ‘Be careful.’ ”

Roche is angry he received a fundraising solicitation for the new school, to be opened in the former Mary Help of Christians School in East Tampa as part of the national Cristo Rey network of college prep schools for “underrepresented urban youth.”

The fundraising letter, he said, “just hit me in the wrong place.” Church officials know about his abuse, he said, and should have removed his name from any fundraising lists.

Jim Madden, feasibility coordinator for the school, didn’t write or sign the letter to Roche. But he said planners are “trying to do something good.”

Pope Francis has recently appointed Bishop Juan Barros as a new bishop in Chile and at his ordination in Osorno Cathedral, about 3,000 demonstrators inside and outside the cathedral – including politicians and members of Congress – held signs and called for Bishop Barros to resign. Hundreds of black-clad demonstrators interrupted the ceremony by marching into a cathedral and shouting at Bishop Barros to leave the diocese, saying he protected a priest accused of sexual abuse. “You have to distinguish between showing a disagreement in a good way and this, because interrupting a Mass is a big shame,” Bishop Juan Barros said.

March 28, 2015

Enoch Powell is named by bishop in sex abuse probe: Scotland Yard to investigate satanic abuse claim - and demands to see filed held on serving MPs

By Giles Owen and Brendan Carlin for The Mail on Sunday

The probe into an alleged paedophile network at the heart of the British Establishment took an explosive turn last night with the revelation that Enoch Powell’s name has been passed to police.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the late Tory MP, one of the most prominent and divisive politicians of the 20th Century, has been named to Scotland Yard by the Bishop of Durham. The claims relate to ‘ritual satanic abuse’.

And in a further development to the sex-ring investigations, police are to be given access to secret files held on MPs in the House of Commons archives as they hunt for evidence on suspected abusers, including former Liberal MP Cyril Smith.

The Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, contacted police after Powell’s name was passed to him by a former Bishop of Monmouth, Dominic Walker, who first heard the allegation when he was a vicar counselling young adults in the 1980s.

The claim is being examined by Operation Fenbridge, one of a number of police probes into ‘Establishment paedophile rings’ – including an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into claims that officers dropped their inquiries under pressure from powerful individuals.

Mr Walker is believed to have warned the Right Rev Butler that at the time he was told of the claims against Powell, unsubstantiated allegations of satanic rituals – often involving the abuse of children – were widespread.

In 1994, an investigation by the London School of Economics into 84 alleged cases of ‘satanic abuse’ in the UK between 1987 and 1992, including notorious cases in Rochdale and the Orkneys that involved social workers and police forcibly removing children from their homes in dawn raids, found no convincing corroborative evidence.

The continuing clerical sex abuse scandals have already helped lead to one pope’s failure and ultimate resignation. Alarmed cardinals then elected an interim pope/media star, Francis, to try to limit potential harm to bishops from the scandals’ continuing and massive waves.

Francis has apparently followed for two years a dual strategy of (a) trying to underplay and string out the scandal with a near farcical abuse commission under disgraced Cardinal Law’s former canon lawyer, and (b) changing the subject with media distractions, like needless foreign trips and endless photo ops, contrived canonizations and aimless synods, papal “double speak” and mixed messaging, pontifications on stopping global warming and militarily opposing ISIS threats and other public relations gimmicks, like pizza deliveries in St. Peter’s Square. This strategy has failed. Children’s safety is too important to Catholic parents to be buried for long in distractions.

The pope now faces escalating risks from governmental pressure and/or investigations and even prosecutions in the UK, Australia, Chile, the USA, Germany and many other countries. The pope also faces a serious revolt among at least several non-clerical members of his papal advisory abuse commission, as well as among everyday Catholics, as the unprecedented protests in Chile just showed.

John Allen, the Vatican friendly journalist who seems close to Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, head of the pope’s abuse commission and member of his elite cardinals’ group, in an untypically critical column (3/27/15) noted: “It’s not clear if Francis fully grasped this at the time, but when he named survivors to that group {the abuse commission}, he was handing them significant control over his reputation. If {Marie} Collins and {Peter} Saunders were ever to walk out, saying they’d lost confidence or feeling that they’d been exploited for a PR exercise, it would have a vast media echo. (emphasis mine)

Allen may be understating the impact of potential commission resignations (potentially by more than just the survivor members, it appears). It also appears that he may have been unaware of investigative reporter, Jason Berry’s important column, earlier in the day, that reported that Peter Saunders, a UK priest abuse survivor and member since last month of the pope’s abuse commission, had already indicated in an e-mail interview that: “Pope Francis has to withdraw this appointment {of Chilean Bishop Juan Barros} or I and others may find it impossible to stay on the commission, …”. Saunders, after less than two months on the commission, reportedly added to this implied threat of resignation: “I am beginning to get a sense of the misguided way in which many church officials operate, … {and} I also sense that they {many church officials} feel extremely uncomfortable, probably threatened by the real prospect that their power — the ‘church’s’ power — will diminish” through the oversight of bishops. (emphasis mine} .

An historical abuse inquiry chairman has won his appeal against a ruling that he unfairly denied legal representation to an alleged victim.

Sir Anthony Hart was challenging a High Court verdict that a bar had effectively been erected against the woman who claims she was molested by a "very high-profile figure".

Senior judges in Belfast backed his case on the basis that she is not expected to be subjected to critical comments in the tribunal's ultimate findings.

Lord Justice Girvan said: "Against the background of a conclusion that the applicant did not face a likelihood of criticism, the dictates of fairness did not call for legal representation or representation at public expense."

Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Francis's decision to appoint a Chilean bishop suspected of protecting a paedophile priest has alarmed the Vatican's own child protection watchdog, its members told AFP.

Several members of the new commission set up by the pope to stamp out child abuse in the Catholic Church expressed their shock at the decision, with pressure building up for the decision to be overturned.

Juan Barros, who took up his post as Bishop of Osorno last Saturday, has denied that he knew about the abuse committed by Fernando Karadima, once an influential figure within the Chilean church.

Commission member French child psychiatrist Catherine Bonnet told AFP Friday that speaking personally she was "worried" by the appointment.

A man abused as a boy 14 years ago by a Toledo Catholic priest was not told the priest had admitted to the allegation before he died, the man’s attorney said Friday.

Khary Hanible is representing a man who reported in January to the Toledo-Detroit Province of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales that the Rev. James H. Roth had sexually abused him when he was nine or 10 years old. Father Roth died in February, and though his death has not been confirmed as a suicide, he left a note admitting to the abuse, said the Rev. Ken McKenna, the Oblates’ provincial.

Father McKenna acknowledged the note Thursday in an interview with The Blade; Mr. Hanible said his client and his family learned of the note from The Blade.

“He's not happy about it,” Mr. Hanible said. “The family is not happy about it.”

Father McKenna said the survivor was told in late February that his allegation was confirmed, but the note’s existence wasn’t revealed because neither the survivor nor his attorney inquired.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has asked a federal bankruptcy court to extend its deadline for filing a reorganization strategy to Nov. 30.

U.S. bankruptcy code offers the archdiocese exclusive rights to propose a reorganization program inside 120 days of petitioning for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which it did on Jan. 16. The court can extend that &ldquoexclusivity period&rdquo for very good cause.

The archdiocese argued that it needed far more time to perform with insurance coverage carriers to figure out liability. It entered into mediation with the carriers, abuse victim creditors and other creditors shortly right after filing for Chapter 11. The bankruptcy came in response to an unprecedented wave of clergy abuse lawsuits filed given that 2013.

&ldquoThere are a number of complicated concerns to be resolved prior to completion of the mediation method,&rdquo according to the notice filed this week. &ldquoIn specific, it is imperative that the Archdiocese and the Committee have enough time to negotiate with the liability insurance coverage carriers for contribution toward a complete and international settlement and consensual plan of reorganization.

DISGRACED Cardinal Keith O’Brien was a “predator” who was involved in dozens of cases of sexual misconduct dating back to the 1980s, it has been claimed.

In an interview with Catholic newspaper the Tablet, an unnamed priest alleges there were multiple incidents of sexual misconduct by O’Brien against seminarians and young clergy dating back to 1985, the year the cardinal became archbishop.

The man, one of five to have previously made allegations against the cardinal, said he believed at least 40 cases took place between 1985 and 2010.

Last week O’Brien again apologised for his “sexual conduct” after formally resigning from his role at a meeting with Pope Francis.

A FORMER Christian Brother was told to “rot in hell” as he was removed from court today to start a fresh sentence for appallingly brazen sex attacks on students.

Ted Bales — who changed his name from Edward Dowlan to hide his true identity — was ordered to serve at least three years for assaulting more than 20 students, some of whom were as young as eight.
As he was led from court, one victim shouted: “Dog”, while another said: “Rot in hell.”

Several victims also stared at Bales throughout the sentencing as the 65-year-old sat slumped in the dock.

County Court judge Richard Smith described Bales’ offending as “brazen” and a gross breach of trust.

The Jamaica Plain-based Italian Home for Children is facing an allegation that its former chief financial officer—George P. Forte Jr.—sexually abused a boy there during the early 1980s.

The claim was made last month by lawyer Mitchell Garabedian, a famed advocate of Catholic Church sexual abuse survivors, on behalf of the unnamed alleged victim via a letter seeking a financial settlement.

The Italian Home, in a written statement to the Gazette, said it conducted an investigation into the claim and found “no evidence” to support it.

The Italian Home also described Forte as a “former employee.” It is unclear when and why he left his job there, but it was a recent move. The Italian Home’s most recent annual report, filed with the Secretary of State’s Office seven months ago, lists Forte as the organization’s CFO and was signed by him.

A profile for Forte on the business-networking website LinkedIn lists him as having worked at the Italian Home since 1982, and also as being a Scout leader in North Attleboro. The Gazette left a phone message for a George Forte listed in that town, but did not receive a response.

A quick footnote to the update I published earlier today about the protest of Pope Francis's decision to make Juan Barros the new bishop of Osorno, Chile: at his Facebook page, Wisconsin SNAP leader Peter Isely has posted commentary today about the controversy. Peter writes,

Pope Francis may want things to be different with the clergy sex abuse symptom but he also doesn’t want things to change. If that seems an impossible position, it is. If it seems like this only keeps the symptom going, it does. It’s a common enough bind. I don’t know a single patient who has walked in to my consulting room for psychotherapy that isn’t asking (sometimes demanding, sometimes pleading) one way or another for the same impossible thing. Of course, they’re not the Pope.

And I think he's absolutely correct about that. As he also notes, Jason Berry has published his own commentary at Huffington Post, noting that, "By any objective gauge, Francis's decision to install Bishop Barros in Osorno was a preventable disaster," and that this decision by Francis threatens to undo all his reform plans.

On June 2, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) will release its report on the legacy of residential schools. The TRC was appointed by the federal government to examine the legacy of the schools back in 2008. It’s documented what happened there and held events at which survivors came forward to tell their stories. Also in 2008, Prime Minister Harper and churches, which operated the schools on the government’s behalf, apologized to former residential school students, who have since received financial compensation.

Indigenous people overlooked

We may think that we know our history but unfortunately most of us do not. Perhaps my own life experience may serve to illustrate. I grew up in rural Saskatchewan, where Treaty Six — between the Crown and nations of the Plains Cree — was negotiated and signed in 1876. About 20 years later, my grandparents and others arrived as agricultural settlers. Our village was about 80 kilometres from Batoche, where the Metis made their last stand against the soldiers and militia of the Canadian government.

Amazingly, I grew up knowing nothing about the treaties or Batoche until I took a Grade 12 Canadian history course. In prairie communities, it was as though the First Nations people who preceded the Europeans never existed. History, it seemed, had begun only when the settlers arrived, and, invariably, comments about indigenous people in our community were negative.

A former youth leader at a church avoided trial on a charge of sexually abusing a preteen girl in 2008, by acknowledging Wednesday in a St. Mary’s courtroom that prosecutors had evidence to support a misdemeanor assault charge.

Michael John Havrilla, 46, left the courtroom with a suspended 18-month jail sentence, and a judge’s warning that any further criminal misconduct during three years of supervised probation would put him behind bars.

The plea agreement spared the girl from testifying in the case, the judge and a prosecutor repeatedly said during the proceeding.

“The state’s attorney was in an awful position,” St. Mary’s Circuit Judge Michael J. Stamm said as he carried out the plea deal, which did not require the girl to take the witness stand. “I think it would be devastating for her,” the judge said, “and that’s why I agreed to do it.”

Jeff Anderson, the St. Paul attorney who is nationally recognized for representing victims of priest sexual abuse, will be the featured speaker at the "Serving Beyond Bars" fundraising dinner Saturday.

Proceeds from the steak and walleye dinner will enable offenders at Minnesota prisons to pack more than 500,000 meals this year to benefit local food shelves through Meals from the Heart.

The event will be from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Lake Elmo Inn Event Center. There will be a cash bar, games and a silent auction.

Del. C.T. Wilson stepped to the podium of a state Senate committee during a routine hearing, about to confess a secret.

He took a deep breath. "I don't really, really want to be here," he said.

He had weighed what might come of revealing his darkest truth to fellow lawmakers. At 43, he'd spent a lifetime building barriers of protection – 231 pounds of hulking muscle, hardly any close friends, training as a combat soldier, earning a law degree while working nights as a bouncer.

Wearing a gray suit, years removed from his daily nightmare, Wilson told the senators that as a child, his adoptive father repeatedly beat and then raped him.

"I can't describe to you the pain of being beaten, sodomized and molested for years," he said. Between ages 9 and 15, "I went from a difficult life to a downright hell."

March 27, 2015

A former Christian Brother jailed for sexually abusing three young boys at a school for the deaf has had his prison sentence reduced by the Court of Appeal because the Circuit Court operated on the basis of an incorrect maximum sentence.

John McCabe (55), of Kilshane Cross, North Road, Finglas, had pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to six counts of indecently assaulting three young deaf boys on dates between 1981 and 1984.

He was sentenced to 12 years in prison with three suspended by Judge Martin Nolan on May 9 2012.

Relying on a recent Court of Appeal decision which found that the maximum sentence for indecently assaulting males in the 1980s was two years in prison and not 10, McCabe established there was an error in his sentence without the need for a hearing.

Victims' advocates are unhappy with the consortium of parishes in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis that are seeking to form a creditors committee, according to Joseph Checkler of the Wall Street Journal. Writing for the 'Bankruptcy Beat', Checkler notes that opponents of the move by approximately 113 of the parishes within the Archdiocese fear that by forming an additional committee the Archdiocese (meaning the Central Corporation led by the Archbishop) will in essence have seats at both sides of the bargaining table.

'Thursday in Minnesota, about 113 parishes of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis will argue they deserve their own voice as creditors in the archdiocese’s bankruptcy case.Victims of alleged clergy sexual abuse and their advocates have called the parishes’ request to form an official committee “troubling,” saying another creditors’ committee would effectively give the archdiocese a place on both sides of the bargaining table.

In Rome, Vatican watchers like to say that the institutional Catholic Church measures time not with a clock, but with a calendar, and that its memory is as durable as the records in its archives, where Galileo's signature, preserved in the documents from his famous trial, looks like it was penned yesterday. In America the one institution that might match the Vatican when it comes to memory and deliberative care is our system of justice where, according to the reliable cliché, the wheels grind slowly. But grind they do and they are gradually revealing the character behind the façade of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan's hearty smile and twinkling eyes.

In the most recent turn in the struggle for justice by victims of clergy sexual abuse, a federal judge found that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee cannot stash $55 million in a trust devoted to cemeteries and deny litigants access to the money as they sue for compensation. Victims of predator priests have used the courts to seek both the documented truth and financial compensation for more than a decade.

The architect of the trust fund idea was then Archbishop of Milwaukee Dolan, who was subsequently made cardinal of New York by Pope Benedict XVI.

Before he shocked the Church by resigning, Benedict stood as the symbol of the Vatican's immoral and schizophrenic response to abuse as he spoke empathetically but acted to shield both clergy and the Catholic treasury. Dolan practiced the same duality, posing as a Christ-like figure of compassion in meetings with victims but acting as if he never heard the admonition to the greedy contained in the gospel of Luke. Indeed, after establishing the trust he then sought the protection of the bankruptcy court for the rest of the assets of the archdiocese. This strategy was replicated elsewhere in the country as bishops, who understood that victims had won billions of dollars in compensation, recognized in Dolan's example a way to evade claims.

Created just as the state of Wisconsin was moving to permit victim lawsuits against the official church, Dolan's enormous trust fund was described by the archdiocese as a vehicle for the care of eight burying grounds. For the care of clergy victims Milwaukee church officials proposed $4 million, less than 10 percent of the sum earmarked for the dead, to be split by 128 claimants. An additional 450 people who came forward to accuse priests of sexual abuse would have been given nothing because they failed to meet certain legal, not moral, criteria.

DISGRACED Cardinal Keith O’Brien was a “predator” who was involved in dozens of cases of sexual misconduct dating back to the 1980s, it has been claimed.

In an interview with the Catholic newspaper the Tablet, an unnamed priest alleges there were multiple incidents of ­sexual misconduct by O’Brien against seminarians and young clergy dating back to 1985, the year O’Brien became archbishop.

The man, who is one of five to have previously made allegations against the cardinal, said he believed that at least 40 cases took place between 1985 and 2010.

Last week O’Brien again apologised for his “sexual conduct” after formally resigning from his role at a meeting with Pope Francis.

The 77-year-old stepped down from the archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh in February 2013 after allegations of inappropriate behaviour were made against him.

One priest allegedly abused by the former leader of Scotland’s Roman Catholics claimed he would groom young clerics while hearing their confessions.

The allegations come days after O’Brien was stripped of high office and banished from public life by the Pope after a damning report.
Pope Francis last week agreed to O’Brien’s request to withdraw his “rights and duties” as a cardinal.

The highly unusual step, last taken in 1927, followed “private and prayerful discussion” between the two men.

O’Brien now leads a “strictly private life” as a cardinal in name only.
His career was ended by accusations of inappropriate behaviour against five priests in the 1980s.

The archdiocese, which has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, seeks a Nov. 30 deadline to submit a reorganization plan.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has asked a federal bankruptcy court to extend its deadline for filing a reorganization plan to Nov. 30.

U.S. bankruptcy code gives the archdiocese exclusive rights to propose a reorganization plan within 120 days of petitioning for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which it did on Jan. 16. The court can extend that “exclusivity period” for good cause.

The archdiocese argued that it needed more time to work with insurance carriers to determine liability. It entered into mediation with the carriers, abuse victim creditors and other creditors shortly after filing for Chapter 11. The bankruptcy came in response to an unprecedented wave of clergy abuse lawsuits filed since 2013.

“There are a number of difficult issues to be resolved before completion of the mediation process,” according to the notice filed this week. “In particular, it is imperative that the Archdiocese and the Committee have sufficient time to negotiate with the liability insurance carriers for contribution toward a comprehensive and global settlement and consensual plan of reorganization.

“It is highly unlikely that the negotiation of these issues will be completed in time to permit the Archdiocese to file its plan within 120 days of the petition date.”

Concepcion, Chile, Mar 27, 2015 / 05:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Both the Archbishop of Concepcion and the apostolic nuncio to Chile have maintained that Pope Francis understood all the facts in the case when he made a bishop appointment in the country earlier this year which has met with protests.

The Chilean Archbishop Fernando Chomali Garib of Concepcion said Thursday that Pope Francis “told me he had analyzed all the past records and that there was no objective reason at all” that Bishop Juan de la Cruz Barros Madrid “should not be installed as the diocesan bishop.”

In an interview with the Chilean newspaper El Sur published March 26, the Archbishop of Concepcion disclosed the details of a meeting he had with Pope Francis March 6, shortly before Bishop Barros was to be installed as head of the Diocese of Osorno.

Bishop Barros' installation was marred by a group of protesters who are accusing him of having covered up sexual abuses committed by Father Fernando Karadima, a charge the prelate denied numerous times. Bishop Barros' vocation was fostered by Fr. Karadima, and he was among his closest circle of friends decades ago.

Several members of Pope Francis’s sex abuse advisory board have expressed concern over his decision to appoint a Chilean bishop despite allegations that he covered up abuse. The appointment set off dramatic protests that longtime survivor advocates say were unprecedented.

Bishop Juan Barros Madrid was installed Saturday as head of a southern Chilean diocese, which set off remarkable protests in the cathedral during his ordination ceremony. The pope naming him to bishop drew a boycott by most of the diocese’s priests and deacons. Five of the 17 members of the Vatican’s commission spoke to the Associated Press about their concerns.

The Catholic Church in the U.S. has made significant changes to prevent clergy sex abuse, but survivor advocacy groups say many countries around the world do not have the same safeguards. Sex abuse scandals began to erupt in several European countries about 2010, including Ireland and Germany.

Survivor advocates are working to develop protections in the developing world where prevention measures are not as extensive.

Barros’s appointment drew outcry by those who allege that he covered up sex abuse committed by his superior, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, in the 1980s and 1990s. A Vatican investigation found Karadima guilty in 2011 and sentenced the now-84-year-old priest to a cloistered life of “penitence and prayer.”

The terrible revelations of sexual misbehavior and cover-ups, exposed in 2002-2003 remain a huge and unspeakably evil scandal. I've never seen any conscientious, serious Catholic try to excuse or justify what happened. It's a black mark that has caused untold damage in many ways.

Yet Catholics are sinners like anyone else, and we should not be utterly shocked when we see instances that prove this: even in cases of heinous sins. King David murdered and committed adultery, yet God still entered into an eternal covenant with him. Indeed, God knew (since He knows everything) when David was a boy that he would eventually commit these terrible sins.

That said, it is also true that media coverage of the outrages and the general issues involved, has been severely distorted. Statistics clearly show that the problem of sexual abuse is a societal-wide one, with occurrences farmore prevalent in other circles. Yet the focus and spotlight continues to be basically only on the Catholic Church. It's classic selective, cynical, agenda-driven reporting, with the result being false and distorted perceptions.

An independent study conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, commissioned by the USCCB, from May 2011, found that sexual abuse from priests occurs at a much lower rate than in the rest of society, and that most abuse takes place in families. The rate among priests was determined to be five per every 100,000 young people, whereas the larger societal rate was 134, or almost a 27 times greater likelihood.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are seething over the content of a letter to the editor of the Kodiak Daily News, which calls into question the testimony of students abused at Saint Innocent’s Academy (SIA).

The victims’ group believe it is the type of victim-shaming that occurs when charismatic leaders are accused of abuse in tight-knit communities.

The Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese of the USA, Canada and Australia (BOD) announced on its website on Saturday, March 21, 2015, that Archpriest Paisius DeLucia, the founder and head of the academy, would be defrocked.

The Kodiak Daily News ran an article that same day that quoted Samuel Dank, a former student at the academy and one of the publishers of a website where 18 former students posted their testimony against DeLucia.

TOLEDO, Ohio — Roman Catholic leaders are looking for potential abuse victims of a deceased priest who once served at a Toledo high school and who the leaders confirm abused a minor more than a dozen years ago.

The Toledo-Detroit Province of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales as well as the Toledo and Detroit Catholic dioceses announced the accusations earlier this week through their websites.

The Blade reported Friday (http://bit.ly/1NliCjN ) that the Rev. James Roth died in February after taking a high dose of insulin while on a drug study for diabetes.

An amendment to fix what the minister of justice calls an error in a law designed to give sex crime victims the right to sue their abuser has been passed by the Nova Scotia legislature.

The original bill, introduced in the fall, removed a statute of limitation in cases of sexual abuse, but only applied going forward, not retroactively.

At the time, Justice Minister Lena Diab said repeatedly no other similar law in Canada allowed for retroactivity.​ But that was incorrect and on Friday she apologized for that error.​

​"A mistake happened," Diab said. "People are humans. What I can tell you is this bill had been worked on for years and years and years. The issue itself was never brought forward in those years, as a you know. And it was missed."

[The archbishop of Concepcion in Children, Fernando Chomali, who until a few days ago was apostolic adminsitrator of the Osorno diocese in southern Chile, said Pope France told him he had looked at all the background information and found no reason why Monsignor Juan Barros could not be bishop of the diocese.]

Staffers in the Vatican paid to think about such things sometimes sit around trying to identify possible tipping points in the public romance with Pope Francis, meaning a calamity that might put a serious dent in his high approval ratings.

One no-brainer on the list would be a perception that he’s backtracking on “zero tolerance” when it comes to sexual abuse in the Church, and two recent story lines suggest it’s not an abstract worry.

First, Nicole Winfield of the Associated Press reported on Thursday that five members of the pope’s own anti-abuse commission have expressed “concern and incredulity” that Bishop Juan Barros has been given command of the Diocese of Osorno in Chile, despite his public record of defending the country’s most notorious abuser priest.

Those objections came on top of protests that forced Barros’ installation Mass to be cut short, as well as ongoing efforts by clergy and laity to ask Francis to rethink the appointment.

Second, an Argentine woman named Julieta Añazco, who alleges abuse by a priest in the La Plata archdiocese more than 30 years ago, recently said that she sent a letter to Francis asking for his help, but has not received a response.

ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) – A California man cannot escape allegations he molested boys in St. Louis County nearly seven years ago; boys he met while he was an intern the First Christian Church of Florissant on Patterson Road.

Brandon Milburn, is locked up in the St. Louis County Jail.

He’s charged with 6 counts of statutory sodomy.

His bail is set at $100,000 cash only.

Milburn is accused of repeatedly molesting the boys at their homes beginning in 2007.

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

A Louisville native and former church employee will be sentenced soon for molesting boys in Missouri. We urge his former colleagues in his Louisville congregation to aggressively seek out others who he may have assaulted.

In January, Brandon Milburn pleaded guilty to seven counts of sodomy with two kids under the age of 12 in a St. Louis County courthouse. From October of 2008 to April of 2009, he worked at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville.

It’s crucial that law enforcement officials know as much as possible about Milburn’s crimes so he can be appropriately sentenced. It’s also crucial that every person he hurts be found and helped. And it’s crucial that any of Milburn’s church supervisors or colleagues who may have concealed his crimes also be prosecuted.

So we beg anyone who has seen, suspected or suffered Milburn’s crimes – or cover ups by church staff – to call police and prosecutors in Missouri immediately.

He could be sentenced to life in prison.

Milburn returned to Louisville in December 2007 after graduating from college in December of 2007 and was hired by Southeast Christian Church as an Atmosphere and Media Tech.

(In Missouri, he worked at First Christian Church in Florissant, in north St. Louis county. The pastor there is Rev. Tyler Brown. Milburn also worked at Gateway Christian Church in west St. Louis county.)

(In Feb. 2014, he was arrested in Valencia, CA, about 35 miles north of Los Angeles, where he worked at the Real Life Church. In 2010, he was an intern at Discovery Church in Simi Valley, California.)

Doing and saying nothing keeps churches unhealthy and keeps kids in danger. Please, search your conscience, find some courage and call us or law enforcement if you have any information or suspicions about Milburn.

A thunderous protest engulfed the arrival of a controversial Chilean bishop to San Mateo cathedral on Saturday. To many, the appointment casts a shadow on Pope Francis's reform agenda for the clergy abuse crisis.

The scene of screaming protestors pushing and shoving as Bishop Juan Barros, 58, enters the cathedral in the southern Chilean city of Osorno can be seen on a YouTube clip.

Pope Francis's decision to send Barros, a bishop for 11 years who served as a military chaplain, to Osorno has ignited new media coverage on Rev. Fernando Karadima, 84, a notorious pedophile in Chile who was ousted by the Vatican four years ago, and who Barros used to share a close connection with.

Karadima was for many years the pastor of a parish in El Bosque, one of Santiago's upscale neighborhoods near a wooded park. Karadima had a cult-like following among youths he guided into seminary and had deep ties with politicians, the military and Vatican officials.

Barros and three other Karadima protégés grew up to become bishops.

"Pope Francis has to withdraw this appointment or I and others may find it impossible to stay on the commission," Peter Saunders, a clergy abuse survivor in London and member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors told GroundTruth in a lengthy email interview.

Thursday in Minnesota, about 113 parishes of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis will argue they deserve their own voice as creditors in the archdiocese’s bankruptcy case.

Victims of alleged clergy sexual abuse and their advocates have called the parishes’ request to form an official committee “troubling,” saying another creditors’ committee would effectively give the archdiocese a place on both sides of the bargaining table.

More than 150 sexual-abuse victims have brought claims against the archdiocese since it filed for bankruptcy in January, in addition to more than 80 claims brought against individual parishes, court papers show.

Catholic dioceses have used the breathing room offered by chapter 11 to negotiate settlements with alleged victims of sexual abuse by clergy members and others, deals that can total many millions of dollars and include nonmonetary forms of compensation such as the release of long-shielded church documents detailing the alleged abuse and subsequent coverup.

Disgraced Cardinal Keith O'Brien is facing fresh accusations of sexual misconduct, with one priest accusers claiming the fallen cleric was involved in dozens of incidents in the past.

Exactly a week after the Vatican announced it had found Cardinal O'Brien guilty of allegations of sexual impropriety, new claims have emerged that he preyed on seminarians and young clergy.

One priest involved in the first public allegations which led to the spectacular fall from grace told the Cardinal encouraged young clerics to attend the sacrament of confession, which he would take, in order to groom them for sexual contact

Summary of Case: Thomas Andert is a priest of the Order of St. Benedict (Benedictines), ordained in 1975. A monk of St. John's Abbey in Collegeville MN, Andert has spent his career as an educator, academic administrator, and as a parish priest. Andert was investigated by Abbey officials in 1994 for an improper sexual relationship with a minor boy who was a St. John's Preparatory School student. Andert was the school's headmaster at the time. The matter was dropped when the boy is said to have told the Abbot that there was no sexual misconduct. In June 2007 Andert was appointed prior of St. John's Abbey and member of the Abbey's External Review Board. The appointment drew public criticism. In response, an Abbey spokesperson said the 1994 investigation yielded "no credible charges of sexual abuse." However, the chair of the Interfaith Sexual Trauma Institute at St. John's in 1994 provided a detailed account in 2007, stating that the investigation was inadequate, and that an inappropriate sexual relationship did occur.

A priest, who has not been named, told the Catholic Church’s own newspaper The Tablet he believed at least 40 cases took place from 1985, the year O’Brien became archbishop, until 2010.

The Tablet spoke to the priest who insisted there were multiple incidents of sexual misconduct by O’Brien against seminarians and young clergy.

Shamed O’Brien - Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric at the time - stepped down from the archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh in February 2013 after three priests and a former priest made allegations of inappropriate behaviour against him.

Last week it emerged the Pope has allowed O’Brien to keep his cardinal title but it carries no “rights or privileges”.

TRENTON — The criminal case against two former employees at a Bergen County high school accused of having sex with students on a school trip to Germany is likely dead now that the state Supreme Court ruled that the men cannot be tried in New Jersey, the prosecutor in the case said today.

New Jersey's highest court voted 6-0 Wednesday that the state does not have jurisdiction in the case against former Paramus Catholic High School employees Artur Sopel and Michael Sumulikoski and dismissed a series of sexual assault and child endangerment charges against the men.

But Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said while his office notified German authorities of the allegations, he does not expect the men to now face charges there instead. The age of consent in the European country is 14.

"Although I can't speak for them, I always believed it would be highly unlikely something would be brought by German authorities," Molinelli said.

New Jersey authorities cannot prosecute two high-school chaperones accused of having sex with three high-school students on a school trip to Germany, the state Supreme Court ruled March 18.

In a unanimous, but unsigned, ruling, the court said New Jersey prosecutors have no authority to prosecute sex crimes that occurred outside of the state’s borders.

“There must be territorial jurisdiction in New Jersey for the state to prosecute a crime here,” the court said. “The state has the power to prosecute crimes that occur within its borders but may not bring charges for offenses committed entirely in another state or country.”

Defendants Michael Sumulikoski and Artur Sopel both worked for Paramus Catholic High School in Paramus. Sumulikoski was a permanent substitute and an athletic coach. Sopel was vice president of operations. Both were chaperones for 17 students on a school-sponsored German Club trip in February 2011, according to the opinion.

NO ONE should be surprised that the state Supreme Court this week ruled that individuals cannot be prosecuted for crimes allegedly committed in a foreign country. The unanimous court ruling broke no new ground; it simply reinforced longstanding principles about the sovereignty of individual nations in terms of prosecuting crimes.

Yet the ruling was still unsettling, as the court itself acknowledged, because it related to very serious charges: The alleged sexual abuse of three high school students by two of their chaperones during a 2011 school trip to Germany.

John Molinelli, the Bergen County Prosecutor whose office sought to prosecute the case in New Jersey, called on lawmakers to change the state’s criminal code to remedy the court opinion. And state Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Wood-Ridge, says he plans to do just that. Nonetheless, it’s hard to see exactly how state legislators can amend a code to allow New Jersey to criminally prosecute sexual offenses allegedly committed in a foreign land.

What the ruling should do is prompt parents and school officials to be more cognizant of the chaperones who accompany students on overseas trips and of the laws governing sexual activity in the nation being visited.

Parents sending their children on class trips overseas: beware. Chaperones may not be prosecuted for sexual assault against the students they are overseeing if the alleged crimes take place in a foreign country.

In a 6-0 decision last week, the New Jersey Supreme Court overturned earlier rulings and said the state did not have “territorial jurisdiction” because the alleged sexual acts by two male chaperones against three 17-year-old female students at a Catholic high school took place in Germany.

The court, however, did recognize what some may consider the “unsettling” nature of its decision and suggested that the legislature may want to rewrite the law. “It is troubling to think that a teacher responsible for the care of young adults can sexually assault them on a school trip abroad and not be subject to prosecution in our state,” the justices said in their decision.

The case began back in February 2011 when Michael Sumulikoski and Artur Sopel supervised a group of students from Paramus Catholic High School on a trip to Germany. A week after the group returned to New Jersey, stories started spreading that something sexual had occurred between the men, who worked at the school, and three of the female students on the trip. A teacher reported the men to state authorities and a Bergen County grand jury indicted Sumulikoski and Sopel on multiple counts of sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

TRENTON, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) — The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the state cannot prosecute two high school employees for sexual assaults on students alleged to have occurred during a class trip to Germany.

Artur Sopel and Michael Sumulikoski were charged with a total of 25 counts, including sexual assault and child endangerment. The 2011 trip involved students from Paramus Catholic High School. Sopel was vice president of operations at the school and Sumulikoski was a substitute teacher and assistant football coach.

As CBS2’s Tony Aiello reported, the case has been a cloud over Paramus Catholic for almost four years.

The men sought to dismiss the sexual assault and endangerment charges, arguing New Jersey didn’t have jurisdiction since the alleged acts occurred in Germany. A judge denied the motion, and an appeals court upheld that ruling. Both held that New Jersey retained jurisdiction because the men had assumed supervisory and disciplinary control over the students while in New Jersey.

A state Supreme Court ruling that dismissed charges Wednesday against two former Paramus Catholic High School chaperones accused of having sex with students during an overseas trip will leave parents worried about sending their children on trips, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said. He called on lawmakers to amend the state’s criminal code to remedy the court decision.

Defense attorneys and some legal experts, meanwhile, defended the ruling as one that was based on a long-established principle that crimes should be prosecuted where they were committed.

“I am hopeful that school districts throughout New Jersey recognize the significance of this ruling, at least until it is corrected by statute,” Molinelli said in a statement Wednesday. “Any school-sponsored class event outside of the state of New Jersey and where a similar incident is alleged to have occurred might meet with the same result, much to the surprise of parents and guardians that might believe otherwise when they authorize their child to attend such events.”

The state’s highest court ruled unanimously that Artur Sopel and Michael Sumulikoski, two former ­employees of the school, cannot be charged in New Jersey for alleged acts |in Germany.

A Catholic priest has been jailed for three years for abusing a boy at a children’s home, in the first case to emerge from allegations of a VIP paedophile ring at a guesthouse in south London.

Father Tony McSweeney, 68, was arrested in February 2013 at his parish in St George’s, Norwich, where he was a respected member of the establishment. He was a member of the governing body of a Catholic school and at one time had served as part-time chaplain for Norwich football club.

When he was arrested officers found indecent images of boys on his computer, and evidence presented to his trial revealed that he had been offending as far back as the 1970s when he began training for the priesthood.

His trial heard how for four decades he was an active paedophile, and that the church and the authorities, including the Catholic church, ignored at least two clear warning signs of his sexual interest in children.

Members of Pope Francis' safeguarding board have expressed concern over his appointment of a Chilean bishop to a diocese despite accusations that he covered up child abuse by a priest.

Marie Collins, an abuse survivor, said she could not understand how Bishop Juan Barros could have been appointed given the concerns about his handling of allegations regarding Fr Fernando Karadima.

"It goes completely against what he [Francis] has said in the past about those who protect abusers," Collins told the Associated Press. "The voice of the survivors is being ignored, the concerns of the people and many clergy in Chile are being ignored and the safety of children in this diocese is being left in the hands of a bishop about whom there are grave concerns for his commitment to child protection."

Ms Collins is a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which was set up in 2014 under the leadership of Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley.

GALLUP, N.M. The year 2015 was meant to be a joyous one for the Gallup diocese. It marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the diocese, and normally that would be a cause of celebration in parishes and schools across New Mexico and Arizona.

However, celebrations have proven to be few and subdued as the diocese continues to be mired in bankruptcy court, and the legacy of clergy sex abuse continues to cast a long shadow across the diocese.

Although Bishop James Wall designated Dec. 12, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, as the kickoff date for the yearlong anniversary celebration, the event was marked with just a low-key Friday morning Mass at Gallup's Sacred Heart Cathedral.

In contrast, three days later, the bishop made national news when he publicly released an updated list of credibly accused sex abusers from the diocese. The list, which included the names of 30 diocesan and religious order priests and one lay religious education teacher, was also posted on the diocesan website for the first time.

"The publication of these additional names does not mean that our vigilance and continued investigation ends here," Wall said in his statement. "The investigations remain ongoing."

A former Norfolk Roman Catholic priest has been jailed for three years for sexually abusing a teenage boy at a care home.

Father Anthony McSweeney has also been put on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years and has been given a Sexual Harm Prevention order which means he has no access to boys between the ages of 12 and 17 without supervision.

He will also only have controlled use of the internet and computers.

Father Anthony McSweeney was found guilty of abuse at a children's home in Hounslow, west London, between 1979 and 1981.

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Christian Brothers organisation concealed the crimes of Brother Edward Dowlan (now known as Ted Bales). From the start, the Christian Brothers knew that Dowlan was committing criminal sexual assaults against Australian schoolchildren but, instead of dismissing him, the Christian Brothers kept transferring him to more schools, thus giving him access to more victims. After 20 years, when some victims finally reported him to the police, the Christian Brothers supported Dowlan and tried to defeat the victims. The victims eventually won (by getting him jailed in 1996 and again in 2015), but their lives have been damaged by the Christian Brothers — and several of Brother Dowlan's victims ended up in suicide. Dowlan's 2015 jailing (under the name Ted Bales) is reported towards the end of this article.

Twenty years after his first crime, Broken Rites arranged for one of Dowlan's victims to have a private chat with detectives from the Victoria Police child-abuse investigation unit, who then interviewed some more of Dowlan's victims. This resulted in Dowlan being jailed in 1996. After being released from jail in 2001, Dowlan changed his surname to "Bales" to avoid media scrutiny and, with help from the Christian Brothers organisation, he moved into a private residence of his own as Mister Ted Bales. In 2014, after more of his earlier victims finally contacted the police, Edward "Bales" pleaded guilty to some more of his crimes and was remanded in custody to await his next sentencing, on 27 March 2015, when he was given a further jail sentence.

It was Broken Rites that first documented the Christian Brothers policy of continuing to support any criminal member in their ranks, even after a court conviction. A senior Christian Brothers official explained this policy in the Melbourne County Court in July 1996, when Brother Edward Vernon Dowlan faced charges for indecently assaulting boys in Victorian Catholic schools. A Broken Rites researcher was present in court, day after day, taking notes during the 1996 proceedings. The following article is based on those notes, together with further notes made in court in 2014 and 2015.

A woman whose only crime was to fall for the wrong man is heartbroken and humiliated. The man she loved has had the most intimate details of his life plastered all over the Press, his reputation now in ruins. The parishioners who adored him are left abandoned and confused. Behold the trail of human wreckage from the Catholic Church's cruel and callous code of compulsory priestly celibacy.

Fr Ciaran Dallat isn't the first - and won't be the last - priest to have lived a lie. The former Bishop of Galway, Eamon Casey, had a fling with an American divorcee and fathered a son.

Bishop Pat Buckley, the rebel cleric excommunicated by the Church after his Episcopal ordination outside its regulations, isn't shy in pointing out this hot-blooded history. "Just look at Irish surnames: McEntaggart, the son of the priest; MacAnespie, the son of the bishop; McNabb, the son of the abbot. Priests having sex is no new phenomenon."

Abuse allegations against the now-former headmaster of a small religious academy in Kodiak have resulted in the removal of his professional status within an Eastern Orthodox diocese.

What will happen to St. Innocent’s Academy -- an alternative school for “at-risk” youths on Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska -- and its staff and students remains unclear.

The allegations center on Paisius DeLucia, who’s accused of physical, verbal and psychological abuse of students at St. Innocent’s.

Complaints from former students of the academy sparked an investigation by Alaska State Troopers as well as an internal investigation by the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese of the U.S., Canada and Australia, which oversees the academy.

The students posted victims’ statements detailing allegations to the website Academy Abuse, which went live in early January. Students claimed there that DeLucia once slammed a young man’s head against a wall and openly shared private confessions to embarrass a student, among other allegations.

TRENTON —The son of a Lakewood rabbi accused of arranging the beatings of men who wouldn't give their wives religious divorces was in a meeting in Ohio when one of the attacks occurred, a business associate told jurors in an ongoing federal kidnapping and conspiracy trial.

The testimony of Greg Emmer, vice president and chief marketing officer for Kaeser & Blair Inc., was offered Thursday as an alibi for David "Ari" Epstein, who is accused of participating in the Aug. 22, 2011, attack on a Brooklyn man who would not give his wife a religious divorce.

That man, Usher Chaimowitz, eventually agreed to the divorce after hours of beatings. Chaimowitz's roommate, Menachem Teitelbaum, who was also beaten in the attack, testified earlier in the trial that he heard one of the assailants yell, "Epstein, call your father."

Federal prosecutors contend the reference was to David Epstein and his father, Mendel Epstein, a prominent Lakewood rabbi who specializes in divorce proceedings. The father and son, along with rabbis Binyamin Stimler and Jay Goldstein, are on trial on kidnapping and conspiracy charges that grew out of a federal sting.

A Christian Brother and convicted paedophile who changed his name to avoid adverse publicity has been jailed for six years for abusing young boys in the 1970s and '80s.

Ted Bales, 65, formerly known as Edward Dowlan, pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting boys, aged between eight and 14, when he was a teacher and headmaster at number of Christian Brothers colleges across Victoria.

The Victorian County Court heard Bales physically punished his victims to make them vulnerable.

He was previously jailed in the 1990s for abusing other boys, some of them the classmates of the victims in the latest case against him.

He professed to be a man of God, but outside a Victorian court where he was jailed for child sex abuse, former Christian Brother Edward "Ted" Bales was called evil and satanic.

The 65-year-old has been ordered to serve at least three years of a six-year prison sentence for indecently assaulting 20 boys under his care at Victorian schools in the 1970s and 1980s.

Bales, formerly known as Edward Vernon Dowlan, changed his name to avoid the publicity of being associated with convicted pedophiles Brother Robert Best and Brother Stephen Farrell, whom he taught alongside at St Alipius school in Ballarat.

Fr Gerald Ridsdale, who was chaplain of the school, is Australia's worst pedophile priest.

Victorian County Court Judge Richard Smith said Bales was a renowned disciplinarian in the school yard.

Mohammed Abdullah Saleem, who faces new criminal charges of sexual assault, tried to ban Zainab Khan from burying her father. Now, she tells her courageous story of standing up to one of Chicago’s most powerful imams.

The decision by courageous women in Kabul, Afghanistan, to defy the orders of mullahs and carry the coffin of a young woman, Farkhunda—slain for the false accusation of burning the Quran— took me to a dramatic moment last spring when I faced off against an imam, not in some faraway city in our Muslim world, but in our own backyard, right here in the United States, in the Chicago suburb of Elgin, Ill.

My confrontation with the imam was about something much more ordinary, but also deeply personal, and my experience reveals the challenges women face in standing up to Muslim clerical leaders—as women do in most faiths, but particularly in ours, stuck as it is religious hierarchies that are the exclusive domain of men.

On May 29, 2014, my beloved father, Jehan Zeb Khan, passed away from prolonged sickness. I was heartbroken. Born in Afghanistan, my father came to the U.S. in the 1950s, knowing that he wouldn’t have the same chances for success had he remained in Afghanistan. He wanted his family to have the life and dignity which he foresaw that he would be stripped of, had he chosen to live there.

It’s looking like it, if you asked me. But nobody asked me, nor would they ever. One thing is for sure, and that is that lots of local folks were unhappy with the appointment, and the installation, of Bishop Juan Barros.

Kevin O’Brien has a lot of the background on how this came about over at his blog, Waiting For Godot To Leave. It seems like lots of folks in Chile are waiting for Bishop Barros to clear out, even though he just took the chair.

The thing that really gets me is that it seems that there was absolutely zero oversight regarding the Fr. Barros appointment. Folks who sit on Pope Francis’ sex abuse advisory board are starting to wonder why they even bother, and frankly, so am I. Here’s what they told reporters from the Associated Press,

The five commission members spoke to the AP in their personal and professional capacity and stressed that they knew about the case only from news reports and were not speaking on behalf of the 17-member commission, which Francis formed in late 2013 and named Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley to head.

“I am very worried,” said commission member Dr. Catherine Bonnet, a French child psychiatrist and author on child sex abuse. “Although the commission members cannot intervene with individual cases, I would like to meet with Cardinal O’Malley and other members of the commission to discuss a way to pass over our concerns to Pope Francis.”

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- On a mission to get Georgia's Hidden Predator Act signed into law, a local man who says he was sexually abused as a child is speaking out. He and the bill's sponsor, Republican State Representative Jason Spencer of Woodbine, say the bill is getting a lot of push back from some powerful special interest groups.

"Imagine summoning the courage to come forward. Most survivors come forward to protect other children, and they often come forward when they are at an age when they have their own children and want to identify the perpetrator, and being told there is nothing you can do," said Justin Conway.

That is what Conway, 37, who is from Kingsland, Georgia says happened to him. It wasn't until about 18 months ago that he says he broke his silence and went to authorities sharing a dark secret he says he had kept for decades.

"I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse," said Conway. "Unfortunately the laws sets up now are set up to hide predators and the Hidden Predator Act is aimed at changing that."

The Law Council of Australia has backed a national redress scheme for abuse survivors and says the commonwealth has the mechanisms to establish one.

Duncan McConnel, the president of the society which represents 60,000 Australian lawyers, says it is possible for the states and territories to refer power to the commonwealth.

In its response to the child sexual abuse royal commission, the federal government has said running a national scheme would be too complex and it does not have the power to set one up.

McConnel said the commonwealth had demonstrated the ability to develop and support a redress scheme through the establishment of the defence abuse response team. The defence force model provided a holistic approach incorporating reparation payments and restorative justice, he said.

STATE governments and churches that ran children's homes should not be allowed administer a redress scheme for child sexual abuse survivors, a royal commission has been told.

LEONIE Sheedy the chief executive of Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN) said a national independent redress scheme needed to recognise all forms of abuse and neglect suffered by children in care.

"Past providers and governments that operated orphanages, children's homes and other institutions should contribute to this national scheme but should have no say in how the redress in managed," she said on Friday.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is hearing from governments and non-government organisations about a compensation scheme for tens of thousands of abuse survivors.

Town halls have called for new powers to help them intervene to prevent children being groomed for sex.

The Local Government Association (LGA) said court-backed orders were necessary because officials were "powerless" to act if they suspected grooming but did not have enough evidence to prosecute.

Sanctions already in place were "too limited", the association said, with Sexual Risk Orders available only to police for suspects posing a risk of sexual harm.

The call, backed by children's charity Barnardo's, comes in the wake of multiple child sex abuse scandals in towns including Rochdale, Rotherham and Oxford - for which police and councils have apologised over their failure to act.

Councillor David Simmonds, chairman of the LGA's Children and Young People Board, said: "At present sanctions to prevent the grooming of vulnerable children are too limited and we need to make it easier to intervene earlier before harm is done.

The stripping by Pope Francis of Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s rights and privileges of his office, coupled with an admission by his successor Archbishop Leo Cushley that his behaviour had made the Catholic Church in Scotland “less credible”, might not be enough, sadly, to bury this sorry affair and let healing begin. There were major allegations against O’Brien when he was Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh. The first was that he was a hypocrite when he outspokenly attacked the proposal for gay marriage. His exposure as a gay man who had made multiple unwanted sexual advances fatally undermined the Church’s message in what was already a tense debate. The reputational damage has been done; he has apologised and paid the penalty.

It is not so easy to lay to rest the allegation that he made some appointments in his archdiocese based on favouritism. That means the essential problem – abuse of power under the protection of the Church’s hierarchical structure – may still be present. But it is not confined to Scotland. There are several cases, most notoriously that of Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër of Vienna, where clergy knew of sexual irregularities in the past or present lives of senior church dignitaries, and did not know where to turn, or were not listened to. On a lesser scale, those who felt aggrieved by the behaviour of Bishop Kieran Conry, then of Arundel and Brighton, felt they had no obvious remedies except, eventually, to go to a national newspaper.

The victims of O’Brien’s sexual misconduct, mainly fellow clergy, suffered greatly. They felt trapped and powerless because of his seniority. It is still not clear how many there were – around 40 has been suggested – and though the new archbishop will need time to address all the issues, there is nothing in place so far that looks likely to give the victims justice. It is suggested that many of the 40 have not made formal allegations, though they are known to fellow victims. That indicates a lack of confidence in the Church’s procedures for dealing with such complaints.

Almost a year after he was arrested, a former Grey County church leader known as 'the prophet' will stand trial for alleged crimes dating back to 1978.

Fred King was the leader of the now defunct Church of Jesus Christ Restored near Chatsworth, Ont.
Following complaints of assault from a former 'church wife,' he was arrest in April 2014.

A preliminary hearing wrapped up in Owen Sound on Wednesday, with Fred committed to stand trial.
He faces 24 charges including sexual exploitation, sexual interference, sexual assault and uttering death threats.

The incidents allegedly happenet at the Chatsworth-area church compound from 1978 to 2008.

WAITE PARK – An investigation by the Minnesota Department of Human Services says a former staffer with WACOSA in Waite Park allegedly sexually abused a vulnerable adult.

WACOSA provides training and employment support for those with disabilities.

The investigation report says the abuse happened on several occasions before December 29th, 2014. Both the vulnerable adult and alleged staff person involved in the abuse were not identified in the report.

In the report it says the staff person touched the vulnerable adult’s breast and genital area underneath clothing on two occasions while working at a church. During the investigation, another incident of the staff person touching the vulnerable adult’s breast was seen by another staff person.

STERLING, Va.(WUSA9) -- Officials are investigating an alleged sexual abuse that happened at the Calvary Temple Church in Sterling, Va., according to Loudoun County Sheriff's Office.

"We understand the concerns of the public, and we want to ensure everyone that we take all allegations of abuse seriously and these crimes will be investigated to their fullest extent," said Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman.

The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday confirmed that an investigation is taking place of alleged sexual abuse at the Calvary Temple Church in Sterling.

“Due to the fact this is an ongoing investigation, no further details can be released at this time,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

“We understand the concerns of the public, and we want to ensure everyone that we take all allegations of abuse seriously and these crimes will be investigated to their fullest extent,” Loudoun Sheriff Mike Chapman said in the statement.

STERLING, Va. -
A Loudoun County church is under investigation following allegations of years of sexual abuse.

Two accusers spoke exclusively with FOX 5 in hopes that others will come forward and abandon a church they say operates as a cult, brainwashes and has sexually abused minors.

26-year-old Chassidi Thompson says for more than a year she was sexually abused by her uncle, a man who also happens to be a deacon at Calvary Temple in Sterling.

"I thought that everything that I was experiencing was in my head. There was no proof of anything, there was no evidence. I would lay there at night: this is just a dream-this is just a dream, this is not happening to me,” said Thompson.

Thompson was only 12 when she says the abuse started. She says at 14 years old she was dumped with only the clothes on her back at a gas station, shunned and ostracized by the church.

Catholic church leaders are looking for other potential victims of a deceased priest who once served at St. Francis de Sales High School, and who, they confirmed, abused a minor 14 years ago.

The Rev. James H. Roth, 61, died Feb. 11 at Hospice of Northwest Ohio after taking a high dose of insulin. Though his death has not been confirmed as a suicide, he left a note admitting to the allegation, said the Rev. Ken McKenna, provincial of the Toledo-Detroit Province of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales.

The survivor, who was not a St. Francis student and is now an adult, reported the abuse to the Oblates in January. Father Roth, who at the time was working for a Catholic school board in Toronto, was immediately removed from his position, police were alerted, and an internal investigation begun, Father McKenna said.

Father Roth was in a drug study for diabetes, and the side effects of the drug included depression and suicidal thoughts, according to the Oblates. While co-workers had noticed mood changes, Father McKenna said it’s unclear whether the drugs impaired his judgment or if the revelation led to his death.

Father McKenna acknowledged that the note would give the impression that Father Roth killed himself because of the charge, but he said he was waiting for the coroner’s office to rule officially on the manner of death.

A former student at Collège St-Hilaire has filed a motion in Quebec Superior Court to authorize a class-action suit on behalf of individuals allegedly sexually abused by clergyman Jean-Paul Thibault, a former teacher and principal at the school.

Thibault, a Catholic brother with the Frères de Notre-Dame de la Miséricorde, was arrested March 17 for sexually assaulting the former student at the college in the 1980s.

Thibault, 72, is accused of indecent assault, sexual assault and incitement to sexual touching while in a position of authority.

The abuse began when the victim was 12 years old, said lawyer Robert Kugler of the law firm Kugler Kandestin, which filed a class-action suit to include the possibility there are other victims of Brother Thibault, who was released on $1,000 bail following his arrest.

A former Christian Brother who was part of a notorious paedophile ring involving the clergy in Ballarat has been jailed for a minimum of three years for abusing 20 young boys.

County Court judge Richard Smith said on Friday that Ted Dowlan, who changed his name by deed poll to Bales in 2011, had preyed on vulnerable boys as young as eight years old over a 14-year period at six different schools from the first year he became a Christian Brother in 1971.

Judge Smith said Dowlan had been in a position of authority and trust and believed he had "some right of entitlement" to abuse the boys in appalling circumstances because he had power over them and they were unable to resist him.

The judge described Dowlan's offending as brazen and said he did not believe he was remorseful.

TOLEDO, Ohio – The Oblates of St. Francis De Sales received an allegation of sexual misconduct of a minor nearly 14-years after it occurred.

Fr. James Roth, who died in February of 2015 from a high dose of insulin which caused low glucose levels and brain damage, is being investigated by Catholic Church leaders. The leaders say the allegations of sexual misconduct from 14-years ago were confirmed true.

According to a statement on the Oblates of St. Francis De Sales website, Roth admitted to the allegations in a note written before his death.

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314-503-0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

We applaud the two victims on the pope’s abuse panel who are speaking out against the promotion of a corrupt prelate. We call on Francis to reverse himself and out the Chilean bishop he just appointed.

Marie Collins and Pete Saunders are expressing concern over the elevation of Bishop Juan Barros who faces credible allegations of witnessing and concealing child sex crimes by Fr. Fernando Karadima.

Rewarding wrongdoers encourages wrongdoing. In some ways, this pope differs from his predecessors. But with clergy sex abuse and cover up cases, he differs little. Francis is way more adept at saying the right things about predator priests and complicit bishops. But he steadfastly refuses to do the right things about them.

Actions matter, not words. And kids are endangered when those who ignore or hide child sex crimes are promoted. Barros’ elevation essentially signals to victims that their pain doesn’t matter to the church hierarchy and to bishops that protecting predators is still valued by the church hierarchy.

Pope Francis has made several unprecedented moves, like carrying his own luggage, cold-calling individuals, and washing the feet of Muslims. He should make a similarly but more significant and unprecedented move and oust this complicit bishop he just appointed.

MORRISTOWN, N.J. (CN) - The Delbarton School faces five lawsuits from alumni of the preparatory school who say they were sexually abused 30 years ago.

The plaintiffs do not use their full names, with three of them using initials and two others simply going by John Does. Each filing involves allegations of abuse from between 1972 and 1984.

Delbarton, a Morristown preparatory school for grades seven through 12, opened in 1939.

While the complaints against the school do not any individuals as defendants, they do identify the priests who allegedly abused the plaintiff students as the Rev. Timothy Brennan, the Rev. Benedict Michael Worry, Father Donal Fox, the Rev. Justin Caputo and the Rev. Luke Travers.

The lawsuits each claim that each of these aforementioned men individually was a "pederast, frotteurist, pedophile and/or ephebophile or other sexual offender, with a habit of making sexual advances and/or engaging in unnatural sexual acts with children."

Though each complaint tips the scales at 30 pages each, none cites specific instances of abuse or goes into detail about any misconduct. They all simply state that the plaintiffs were all "sexually assaulted and/or sexually abused" by the officials at the school while they were matriculating there.

A state Superior Court panel upheld this week the prison sentences of a Catholic priest and former parochial-school teacher convicted of sexually abusing a 10-year-old altar boy from Northeast Philadelphia.

The Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero, a former St. Jerome teacher, were sentenced by a Common Pleas Court judge in June 2013 for abuse that occurred in the late 1990s.

Their lawyers appealed, contending prosecutorial misconduct and citing new evidence.

Engelhardt died Nov. 16, 2014, just weeks after his appeal was heard. He was sentenced to six to 12 years in prison for child endangerment, corruption of a minor, and indecent assault. Prosecutors said Engelhardt offered Communion wine to the boy, forced him to disrobe, and assaulted him at the church's sacristy.

During what one participant described as an "explosive" meeting, the San Francisco archdiocese's Council of Priests in mid-February addressed Star of the Sea pastor Fr. Joseph Illo's decision to phase out altar girls as well as the designation of the parish as an oratory-in-formation.

Retired Sulpician Fr. J. Michael Strange, who lives at St. Stephen Parish in San Francisco, "proposed this agenda item and raised the issue for discussion because many of his constituents and parishioners at St. Stephens and elsewhere have contacted him regarding Fr. Illo's recently announced policy of admitting only altar boys at Star of the Sea Parish," according to a draft of the Feb. 12 meeting's minutes.

NCR obtained a copy of the minutes from an anonymous priest.

Strange told council members that "he found other aspects of Fr. Illo's parish bulletin explanation [in regard to] this new policy troublesome, as was the fact that Fr. Illo did not consult his deanery to see if this was a wise and prudent move prior to implementing this policy, noting consultation is one of the purposes of a deanery."

According to the minutes, Strange said he and other priests have had "to spend much time on the issue with parishioners."

The Diocese of Toledo has received a report from the Toledo-Detroit Province of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales (OSFS) which has deemed credible an allegation of sexual misconduct with a minor by one of the religious order’s priests, the late Father James Roth (1953-2015). From 1976 to 1987 as a religious brother and 1995 to 2004 as a priest, Father Roth served at Saint Francis de Sales High School in Toledo Ohio as a faculty member/administrator, and from 1995 to 2004 assisted with weekend Masses and sacramental ministry at Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Church in Monroe, Michigan. Other assignments included educational ministry in Utah and Ontario, Canada. Father Roth died February 11, 2015.

All inquiries concerning this case should be directed to the provincial for the Toledo-Detroit Province, Father Kenneth McKenna, OSFS (419-724-9851). If you have something to report regarding this matter, please contact the Oblates’ victim assistance coordinator, Adrienne Rowland (888-308-6252). For more information: www.tdprovince.org.

In January the Toledo-Detroit Province received an allegation of sexual misconduct of a minor by Fr. James Roth (1953–2015). The abuse occurred 14-years ago.

The Province responds to allegations according to standards developed by Praesidium. Within hours of receiving the report, Fr. Roth was removed from ministry and law enforcement was informed. We convened the Praesidium-mandated Review Board and hired an investigator to investigate the accusation.

The Review Board, consisting of two social workers with extensive experience dealing with sexual misconduct, an educator, a psychologist and a Toledo-area judge, confirmed the allegation. They are now helping us learn of any other victims so we may offer a compassionate response.

If you or someone you know has been sexually abused by an Oblate, please click here to report sexual misconduct or call me at 419-724-9851.

On behalf of the Oblates, I want to apologize to anyone who has ever been injured, physically or emotionally, by any member of our congregation. We wish to help those in pain and we reaffirm our desire to play a role in the healing process.

Rev. James H. Roth, O.S.F.S. passed away on February 11, 2015 at Hospice of NW Ohio, due to complications of diabetes.

Fr. Jim was born to Robert J. and Therese (Desjardins) Roth in Lockport, New York on March 10, 1953. In 1971 he graduated from DeSales High School, Lockport, NY. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Spanish from Niagara University in 1976, a Masters in Religious Education degree from St. Michael’s University in 1984, a Masters in Education from the University of Toledo in 1985 and a Masters of Divinity from the Toronto School of Theology in 1995. Fr. Jim made his first profession as an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales in 1978 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1995.

After profession Fr. Jim taught at St. Francis de Sales High School in Toledo, Ohio for 11 years followed by 5 years at Judge Memorial High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. He returned to St. Francis High School in 1995 as teacher and guidance counselor. In 2004, he became director of the Oblate House of Studies as well as campus minister at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario. From 2008 to his time of passing, he was the priest-in-residence for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board in Mississauga, Ontario.

Catholic church leaders are looking for other potential victims of a now-deceased priest who once served at St. Francis de Sales High School and who they confirmed abused a minor 14 years ago.

The Rev. James H. Roth, 61, died Feb. 11 at Hospice of Northwest Ohio after taking a high dose of insulin. Though his death has not been confirmed as a suicide, he left a note admitting to the allegation, said the Rev. Ken McKenna, provincial of the Toledo-Detroit Province of the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales

The survivor, who is now an adult and was not a St. Francis student, reported the abuse to the Oblates in January. Father Roth, who was at the time of the accusation working for a Catholic school board in Toronto, was immediately removed from his position, police were informed, and an internal investigation initiated, Father McKenna said.

Father Roth was in a drug study for diabetes, and the drug warned of side effects that included depression and suicidal thoughts, according to the Oblates. Coworkers had noticed mood changes. Father McKenna said it’s unclear whether the drugs impaired his judgement, or if revelation of the abuse led to his death.

SAN FRANCISCO
In a packed auditorium at Star of the Sea School in San Francisco on Wednesday, parents told representatives of the archdiocese to remove the parish's two priests.

After describing the changes that Fr. Joseph Illo, administrator, has instituted at the school since his arrival and the effects on their children, most of the parents concluded their talks by saying, "We respectfully ask that Fr. Illo and Fr. Driscoll be removed from Star of the Sea."

The audience frequently clapped and cheered while Illo and associate pastor Patrick Driscoll faced the audience and the speakers. Auxiliary Bishop William Justice and Fr. Raymund Reyes, vicar for clergy, also attended the meeting. Reyes took notes; Justice said they would pass the parents' comments on to San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone.

Justice added that recently, the archdiocese has received a few, "not a lot," of emails in support of Illo. He said those emails would be considered along with the parents' comments.

If the Vatican's Abuse Commission was established merely for show, the members thereof do not think so. If Francis really wants the laity involved in cleaning up the Scandal, he's getting what he asked for - and I'd wager he doesn't like it.

Here's an ABC News story on the situation in Chile that quotes a number of lay members of the Abuse Commission who are attempting to hold Pope Francis accountable for serious reform. It is ironic that the liberalists in the Church, for all their errors, are right about one thing in particular - the laity are members of the Church as much as the clergy are. Vatican II was adamant about that, and maybe that will begin to sink in.

Several members of Pope Francis' sex abuse advisory board are expressing concern and incredulity over his decision to appoint a Chilean bishop to a diocese despite allegations from victims that he covered up for Chile's most notorious pedophile.

Summary of Case: A native of Lafayette LA, Joseph J. Alexander joined the Benedictine order in 1955. He lived and worked as a religious brother at a monastery in KY, and was ordained a priest in 1973. Alexander left the Benedictines in 1984, returning to LA to serve as a priest of the Lafayette diocese. He was involved in education and parish work. In April 2002 Lafayette bishop Edward O'Donnell removed Alexander from active ministry after learning of an allegation that Alexander had "engaged in sexual impropriety" with a teenage boy in KY in the early 1960s. Alexander acknowledged the "impropriety."

The President of the United States has requested to continue the dialogue he has begun with the Argentinian Pontiff, the White House announces

VATICAN INSIDER STAFF
ROMA

The President of the United States, Barack Obama, and the First Lady will welcome Pope Francis to the White House on 23 September. It will be a visit in which Obama and the Pontiff will continue the dialogue they started during the President’s visit to the Vatican in March 2014, the White House has announced.

During the visit, Obama and the Pope will continue to discuss their shared values and commitments on a wide range of topics, including caring for those on the margins of society and the poor, the effort to promote economic opportunities for everybody, to be good custodians of the environment, to protect religious minorities and promote religious freedom in the world, and the acceptance and integration of immigrants and refugees into our communities. “The President is delighted to be able to continue his conversation with the Holy Father during his first visit to the United States as Pontiff”, the White House has said.

A Manhattan Beach woman has filed a lawsuit against a former priest from American Martyrs Catholic Church, alleging he sexually abused her while she was setting up a Mass.

Kate Bergin also named the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in the suit, announced Wednesday morning, claiming the church was negligent and failed to warn parishioners when it transferred the priest to another parish in Los Angeles late last year.

Bergin said she would drop the lawsuit if Father Nicholas Assi is removed from ministry.

“I don’t want to sue the church. I want to be able to go to church, but I can’t,” Bergin said through tears Wednesday outside American Martyrs. “It’s hypocrisy. They act like everything’s fine. It’s not. When something like this happens, they turn their backs.”

Edinburgh’s disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien was in the news again last week after he resigned his rights and privileges as a cardinal. The Vatican stated that “with this provision” Pope Francis “would like to manifest his pastoral solicitude to all the faithful of the Church in Scotland and to encourage them to continue with hope the path of renewal and reconciliation.”

Nevertheless, Mr. and Mrs. McLean of Edinburgh screamed at each other for half an hour, fighting hammer and tongs over whether or not Cardinal O’Brien had been hung out to dry by a coterie of gay priests because of his prominence in the Scottish battle to preserve traditional marriage.

One of the difficulties Edinburgh Catholics have in discussing the downfall of our former archbishop is that we don’t know what he did exactly. We know only that three active priests and one “former” priest told journalist Catherine Deveney that within a 33-year period, O’Brien made at least four “inappropriate approach[es]” to them. The youngest was 20, a seminarian, when the alleged impropriety occurred. The others were priests, adult men, when Father/Bishop/Cardinal O’Brien offended them.

The story broke on Feb. 23, 2013 and, like many other Edinburgh Catholics, I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t get my mind around the idea of our big, hearty Irish cardinal making sexual passes at men.

I run with a Church-centric crowd that is well-seasoned with urban sophisticates, and none of us had an inkling that the cardinal was gay or unchaste. Gossips opined only that he was no intellectual and was overfond of whiskey. They were embarrassed by his habit of singing “Mud, Mud Glorious Mud” at parties, but they had to admit it was a crowd-pleaser. The cardinal sang it even at the Edinburgh Festival.

Several members of Pope Francis' sex abuse advisory board are expressing concern and incredulity over his decision to appoint a Chilean bishop to a diocese despite allegations that he covered up for Chile's most notorious pedophile.

In interviews and emails with The Associated Press, the experts have questioned Francis' pledge to hold bishops accountable and keep children safe, given the record of Bishop Juan Barros in the case of the Rev. Fernando Karadima.

The five commission members spoke to the AP in their personal and professional capacity and stressed that they were not speaking on behalf of the commission, which Francis formed in late 2013 and named Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley to head.

"I am very worried," said commission member Dr. Catherine Bonnet, a French child psychiatrist and author on child sex abuse. "Although the commission members cannot intervene with individual cases, I would like to meet with Cardinal O'Malley and other members of the commission to discuss a way to pass over our concerns to Pope Françis."

Another commission member, Marie Collins, herself a survivor of abuse, said she couldn't understand how Francis could have appointed Barros given the concerns about his behavior.

"It goes completely against what he (Francis) has said in the past about those who protect abusers," Collins told AP. "The voice of the survivors is being ignored, the concerns of the people and many clergy in Chile are being ignored and the safety of children in this diocese is being left in the hands of a bishop about whom there are grave concerns for his commitment to child protection."

ROME
Two members of the new Vatican commission advising Pope Francis on clergy sexual abuse say they are both concerned and surprised at the pope's decision to appoint a bishop in Chile who is accused of covering up abuse, even witnessing it while he was a priest.

Speaking in brief NCR interviews Thursday in personal capacities, the commission members also said some in their group are considering traveling to Rome to speak to the pope face-to-face on the matter.

Bishop Juan Barros Madrid was installed Saturday as head of the diocese of Osorno, Chile, amid protests in the cathedral. Chilean survivors accuse Barros of covering up abuse by Fr. Fernando Karadima, a once-renowned spiritual leader and key Chilean church figure who was found guilty by the Vatican in 2011 of sexually abusing minors, when Barros was a priest.

"I am only speaking for myself, but as a working sub-group of the commission, we are all very disturbed by what is going on in Chile," said Peter Saunders, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and a survivor of abuse.

The Reverend Joseph Lieberth, formerly the pastor of Holy Family parish in Stow, Ohio, was placed on administrative leave by the Diocese of Cleveland in April of 2002 based on an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor dating back to the 1980’s.

After appropriate due process according to canon (Church) law, the Most Reverend Richard Lennon, Bishop of Cleveland, has imposed on Father Lieberth “A life of prayer and penance.” Father Lieberth is no longer permitted to celebrate Mass publicly or administer the sacraments. He is not to wear clerical attire or publicly present himself as a priest. In a spirit of repentance, he has agreed to pray daily for the victims of sexual abuse as is mandated by the Essential Norms of the U.S. Charter for the Protection of Children.

Under canon law, “A life of prayer and penance” is imposed, for example, when a priest is of advanced age or is seriously ill. The process also includes regular periodic monitoring by Diocesan staff.

The Diocese of Cleveland continues its commitment to protecting children and helping to heal victims of abuse. We are deeply sorry for the pain suffered by survivors of abuse due to the actions of some members of the clergy.

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Christian Brothers organisation concealed the crimes of Brother Edward Dowlan (now known as Edward Bales). From the start, they knew that he was committing criminal sexual assaults against Australian schoolchildren and, instead of dismissing him, the Christian Brothers kept transferring him to more schools, thus giving him access to more victims. When police finally charged him after 20 years, the Christian Brothers supported Dowlan, instead of supporting the victims. The victims eventually won (by getting him convicted in 1996 and again in 2014), but their lives have been damaged by the Christian Brothers— and at least one of Brother Dowlan's victims ended up in suicide. Dowlan is being sentenced again (under the name Ted Bales) on 27 March 2015.

Twenty years after his first crime, Broken Rites arranged for one of Dowlan's victims to have a private chat with detectives from the Victoria Police child-abuse investigation unit, who then interviewed some more of Dowlan's victims. This resulted in Dowlan being jailed in 1996. After being released from jail in 2001, Dowlan changed his surname to "Bales" to avoid media scrutiny and, with help from the Christian Brothers organisation, he moved into a private residence of his own as Mister Ted Bales. In 2014, after more of his earlier victims finally contacted the police, Edward "Bales" pleaded guilty to some more of his crimes and was remanded in custody to await his next sentencing proceedings, which are scheduled to be completed by March 2015.

It was Broken Rites that first documented the Christian Brothers policy of continuing to support any criminal member in their ranks, even after a court conviction. A senior Christian Brothers official explained this policy in the Melbourne County Court in July 1996, when Brother Edward Vernon Dowlan faced charges for indecently assaulting boys in Victorian Catholic schools. A Broken Rites researcher was present in court, day after day, taking notes during the 1996 proceedings. The following article is based on those notes, together with further notes made in court in 2014 and 2015.

SCITUATE
The fate of St. Frances X. Cabrini Church is now up to a judge.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston served the Board of Directors of the Friends of St. Frances X. Cabrini, Inc., with a summons to appear at the Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham on Friday, March 20 for a hearing on the archdiocese’s request for a preliminary injunction.

The archdiocese had until Tuesday, March 24 to file the proper deed to the 30-acre property located on Hood Road in Scituate with the Norfolk Superior Court, according to Mary Elizabeth Carmody, legal counsel for the Friends of St. Frances. X. Cabrini, Inc.

The Friends then had until Wednesday, March 25 to file a supplement, including a deed—at the Court’s request.

“Then the court will decide,” Carmody said. “We do not know how long the decision will take.”

The relationship between the archdiocese and the Friends has been rocky since 2004, when the archdiocese closed the St. Frances X. Cabrini church as part of its reorganization plan.

The Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh has described the actions of his predecessor, who has apologised for his sexual failings, as damaging the Church’s credibility and demoralising Catholics.

Archbishop Leo Cushley’s comments came after Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by five men, four of them priests, resigned the “rights and privileges” of a cardinal.

This week The Tablet spoke to one of the priest accusers of Cardinal O’Brien who said there were multiple incidents of sexual misconduct by the cardinal against seminarians and young clergy.

The priest, who is remaining anonymous, said he believed that at least 40 cases took place from 1985, the year the cardinal became archbishop, until 2010.

He described how the cardinal made an “unmistakeable” sexual advance to him at Archbishop’s House in Edinburgh in 1990 which the priest, who is not gay, said he rebuffed. He said that the cardinal acted afterwards “as if nothing had happened…he blanked it completely.”

Warsaw.- A court in Wolomin, Poland on Wednesday sentenced former priest Wojciech Gil to seven years in prison and fined 40,000 euros for abusing two children in Poland. He also faces charges of abusing six boys in Dominican Republic, EFE reports.

The ruling also bans Gil from contacting the victims and from working with young people for a period of 15 years.

In the first hearing on March 20 Gil’s defense plea bargained for a 7-year sentence, half the maximum penalty for a child abuse conviction and possession of child pornography.

The priest was also indicted on charges of molesting at least 7 seven between 2009 and 2013 during his tenure as parish priest in the town of Juncalito, in Dominican Republic's highlands.

YESHIVAH Melbourne’s senior rabbi allegedly told a congregant this week that he had no right to contact police without permission from a rabbi.

The congregant, who was a victim of child sexual abuse, has filed a claim against the Yeshivah Centre and Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Telsner with the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Right Commission (VEOHRC).

The victim, who has been the subject of bullying and intimidation because he came forward to police, was granted an Interim Intervention Order (IIO) against someone within the Yeshivah Centre community.

On Monday, he told Rabbi Telsner about the IIO so that it could be enforced in synagogue.

“Rabbi Telsner then asked the applicant (victim) whether he had sought and received permission from a rabbi to have the order granted by the court,” the victim said in a statement to the VEOHRC.

The Catholic Church says it is disappointed the federal government has so quickly rejected a national scheme to compensate abuse survivors.

In its response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the church backed a national, fair, compassionate and independent scheme which would be run by the federal government with the participation of state and territory governments.

Francis Sullivan, CEO of the Truth Justice and Healing Council (TJHC), told a national inquiry on Thursday that it was surprising that the Commonwealth had initiated the inquiry and "yet has so quickly discounted itself from one of the most fundamental issues we have to redress".

"You would think that any government that was setting up a Royal Commission of this nature would know that a possible redress scheme would be one option," Mr Sullivan said.

The commission has recommended a single national scheme and done modelling to show it would cost $4.3 billion and cover 65,000 survivors.

Redress funds for abuse survivors should be used to expand Medicare, a royal commission has been told.

Louise Roufeil, executive manager of the Australian Psychological Society (APS), said an overhauled Medicare system was essential to properly help thousands of people traumatised by childhood experiences in care.

Dr Roufeil said the doorway to services was very narrow and entry "very difficult and when you can get in, the capacity to fully provide treatment is limited".

Her evidence on Thursday to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse came a day after the federal government knocked back a commission suggestion that Medicare be expanded.

The Tk'emlups Indian Band and the Sechelt Indian Band are fighting for compensation for First Nations children who attended B.C. residential schools but did not live there.

Lawyers representing the bands will be in court next month, arguing for the certification of a class action lawsuit launched in 2012 that seeks compensation for all day scholars who attended residential schools.

Tk'emlups Chief Shane Gottfriedson says the two bands will argue that day scholars — students who returned home every night — suffered the same abuse and mistreatment that many residential school students endured.

They also suffered the same loss in culture and language, the bands will argue, yet they were never compensated.

A Manhattan Beach woman has filed a lawsuit against a former priest from American Martyrs Catholic Church, alleging he sexually abused her while she was setting up a Mass.

Kate Bergin also named the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in the suit, announced Wednesday morning, claiming the church was negligent and failed to warn parishioners when it transferred the priest to another parish in Los Angeles late last year.

Bergin said she would drop the lawsuit if Father Nicholas Assi is removed from ministry.

“I don’t want to sue the church. I want to be able to go to church, but I can’t,” Bergin said through tears Wednesday outside American Martyrs. “It’s hypocrisy. They act like everything’s fine. It’s not. When something like this happens, they turn their backs.”

A victim of child sexual assault by a Catholic brother has said the federal government “would prefer us to suffer in silence” after it critic­ised plans for a compensation scheme for the victims of such crimes.

The government also declined an invitation to appear at a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to discuss the issue yesterday.

Commission chairman Peter McClellan said commissioners were “disappointed” the government had not backed the scheme, which was “overwhelmingly supported” by victims and many institutions, including the Catholic, Anglican and Uniting churches.

The proposals involve establishing an independent national body with powers to order instit­utions to formally apologise, pay compensation to and help with the medical costs of an estimated 65,000 victims, at a cost of about $4.3 billion.

The Federal Government's rejection of a proposal for a national compensation and support scheme for victims of child sexual abuse is surprising, the Catholic Church's Truth, Justice and Healing Council chief says.

Francis Sullivan appeared before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse this morning to present the Catholic Church's proposal for a victim's redress scheme.

Mr Sullivan said the church supported a national scheme administered by the Federal Government and funded by the institutions responsible for abuse.

But he expressed his surprise that the Federal Government disagreed with a national model, which was widely supported by most institutions and victim advocacy groups.

Victims of child sexual abuse are being "retraumatised" by inadequate Medicare-funded counselling services that are plagued by a shortage of properly trained practitioners, the head of the Australian Psychological Society has told the royal commission.

As the commission continued to examine the issue of redress for victims on Thursday, the executive manager of the Psychological Society, Louise Roufeil, said the maximum of 10 private counselling sessions provided for people with mental health issues under Medicare were nowhere near sufficient to support abuse victims.
.
"Commencing a therapeutic relationship with a survivor and offering hope and then not being able to carry the treatment to fruition represents a failure again for the survivors," Dr Roufeil told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

"The treatment response is itself retraumatising. This cannot be allowed to continue."

Dr Roufeil said there were very few counselling services in the country which had practitioners who were properly trained in assisting victims of child sexual abuse.

The moment when things went wrong for victims of child abuse in Australia was a very precise one. In the 1990s, Jeff Kennett, then premier of Victoria, met with George Pell, who was at that stage the Catholic archbishop of Melbourne. According to Pell, Kennett told him to “clean this [child abuse] thing up and there won’t be a royal commission”.

Kennett told The Age last year that he was “reassured that George said ‘yes’, he’d get stuck into it ... it’s not for me to sit in judgment … of whether the response was adequate or not”.

We know what the church’s action was: Pell took matters into his own hands and set up the Melbourne Response in 1996. In doing so, he went out ahead of the rest of the church which, we know from the commission, was in the process of developing a more integrated, national version of what would become its response to abuse, Towards Healing.

By being unconcerned with the quality of the church’s response and leaving it to its own devices, Kennett made a serious mistake.

His response laid bare a question that the commission is now grappling with: do we believe the state has a moral duty to care for its vulnerable citizens, or not? Of course, many don’t believe that governments should “sit in judgment” on matters that are properly the domain of the private sector, civil society, or the impersonal order of the market.

The state Superior Court has upheld the prison sentence of Charles Engelhardt, a priest convicted of indecent assault, corruption of minors, and endangering the welfare of a child.

On Wednesday, a three-judge panel affirmed the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas' sentencing of Engelhardt to six to 12 years in prison, to be followed by five years of probation.

Engelhardt, who was accused of raping D.G., an altar boy, stood trial on Jan. 14, 2013. Engelhardt was charged with one count each of indecent assault, corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of a child, rape of a child, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and aggravated indecent assault, as well as four counts of criminal conspiracy, according to Judge Sally Updyke Mundy's memorandum.

The indecent assault, corruption of minors, and endangering the welfare of a child convictions came on Jan. 30, 2013, Mundy said.

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A lawsuit has been filed against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and a priest, claiming he sexually abused a woman at American Martyrs Catholic Church in Manhattan Beach.

Catherine Bergin claims Father Nicholas Assi sexually abused her last spring at the church.

"He pressed his belly against my back. He pushed me against the counter. He put his hand under my shirt, moving down my pants," she said.

Bergin and her attorney have filed a lawsuit against Assi and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. She said the church is once again trying to hide sexual abuse problems, in this case by transferring Assi to a different parish - St. Basil's Church in Koreatown.

"It's hypocrisy. They act like everything is fine. It's not. When something like this happens, they turn their backs," Bergin said.

A Catholic priest and former TV host in Alabama has been accused of molesting his own underage son several years ago.

The accusation against David Lawrence Stone, 54, came in court papers he’s been waging with the mother’s child, Christina Presnell.

Stone was arrested and charged for the alleged sex assault in 2013, but the case had a second coming this week when the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a national child abuse monitoring group, started focusing on it.

Deacon Stephen Martinez is hoping Archbishop Anthony Apuron will take action. He's written another letter to the head of the island's Catholic church not only concerned about Father Luis Camacho's recent arrest, but also about the Redempotoris Mater Seminary, where he learned to become a priest and its connection to the Neocatechumenal Way.

Fr. Luis was arrested last week after police found him with a 17-year-old girl parked at a beach in Agat. The girl was supposed to be in school at the time. According to Martinez, he alleges the two were engaging in cunnilingus.

Deacon Martinez used to be the Archdiocese of Guam's sexual abuse response coordinator (SARC), but was removed seven months ago. According to Martinez, he's not sure he why was suddenly ousted but two months prior to his removal he had brought up concerns regarding the church's sexual abuse policy. Deacon Martinez, who did not want to be interviewed for television, said at that time - and even till now - he is extremely concerned that the policy is flawed and could cause financial distress for the archdiocese. He pointed out that the policy has the potential for a conflict of interest.

For example, he says, "If there is an allegation against the archbishop and he decides not to move forward, then the policy becomes meaningless." In order to remedy this flaw Martinez had recommended that the policy be revised "allowing for a bishop from a different archdiocese to make the call."

But aside from the policy, Deacon Martinez is going public because he wrote he is "gravely concerned with a growing pattern of sexual deviancy from Redemptoris Mater Seminary-trained priests and seminarians" .

March 25, 2015

These alleged disturbing details extend to other seminarians involved in the Neocatechumenal Way.

Guam - The saga continues in the priest sex scandal, this time more disturbing details are being alleged and not just with Father Luis Camacho, but with other members of the neocatechumenal way.

It’s the second letter Deacon Steve Martinez has written to Archbishop Anthony Apuron over Father Luis Camacho’s sex scandal involving a 17-year-old female student. Deacon Steve alleges that, based on his understanding, Father Luis and the student engaged in oral sex.

“This is a grave abuse of trust and a tendency which a proper psychological examination may have disclosed,” writes Deacon Steve.

He points out the irony in Father Luis’ case. He says Father Luis was a product of the teachings of the neocatechumenal way led by Father Edivaldo--teachings Deacon Steve says should be investigated.

For instance, he says on one occasion, Father Edivaldo warned young girls about boys, saying boys will treat girls like oranges, “sucking the sweet juice from them and when they are all dried up the boys will spit them out.” Other examples include public confessions in which seminarians would disclose personal struggles that include "excessive masturbation."

The most recent, says Deacon Steve, was during mass at the Cathedral de Basilica in which Father Luis’ brother, Gabe Camacho, a seminarian at the Redemptoris Mater Seminary, is alleged to have told churchgoers quote “I don’t know how many girls I’ve taken advantage of … I should maybe have two children, three children, not even with the same woman.” Again this quote is according to the letter written by Deacon Steve.

Last weekend, supporters of Pope Francis’ Chilean appointment, Bishop Juan Barros, incredibly tried to drown out the chants of protest against his ordination in Osorno Cathedral. This occurred despite Osorno’s close proximity to Argentina and Francis’ longstanding close ties to Chile. In Italy, Pope Francis and his media machine have since focused instead on pizza, relics, gossip, gender theory, etc. — anything but Chile, it seems.

Not so elsewhere. In Ireland, the prophetic abuse survivor, Marie Collins, who now with UK abuse survivor, Peter Saunders, advise Pope Francis on priest child abuse matters, has called on the pope to remove the recently-appointed Chilean bishop. The bishop is alleged by several credible abuse survivors to have covered up for Chile’s most notorious clerical abuser. Collins says she accepts as truthful the testimony of a male survivor that Barros watched him being abused, yet did nothing about it. See “Irish abuse survivor calls for removal of bishop accused of abuse cover-up”, with a brief but pointed video of Collins’ giving her no-nonsense statement, as well as of the unforgettable statement of the male survivor, here,

In the USA, a perceptive and careful Catholic has carefully dissected the captive Catholic media’s shameful and inept attempt to spin the reports (confirmed by vivid videos) of the unprecedented revolt of thousands at the bishop’s chaotic installation. This suggests that Pope Francis may face considerable similar protests from outraged parents and grandparents when he visits Philadelphia, New York and Washington DC in several months. See “Catholics: Don’t Believe CNA’s Spin on Bishop Barros and the Situation in Chile“, here,

Moreover, in the UK, where a major national investigation of church and other institutional child sexual abuse is just beginning, Peter Saunders, the pope’s other featured abuse survivor who now sits on the pope’s belated “go slow” abuse commission, is also bravely speaking out — evidently after now having seen up close what the abuse commission’s flawed approach to date has been. Saunders has reportedly said that proof of the Church’s seriousness in tackling the problem will be revealed by its action – or inaction – in cases like the one involving Barros in Chile.

If Francis fails to remove Barros promptly, will either Marie Collins or Peter Saunders or both of them resign from the seemingly ineffective abuse commission? As a Cathoilc grandparent, I hope they both do. As an international lawyer, I think they should. If Barros stays, they are then just being used, it appears.

Jane Doe No. 2 v. Norwich Roman Catholic Diocese et al.: A Massachusetts woman who claims she was sexually abused by a priest in Norwich over the course of her entire childhood has settled her lawsuit against the diocese for $1.1 million. The woman, known only as Jane Doe No. 2 in court records, claims she was molested about 60 times from age 3 to age 18 by the Rev. Thomas Shea, a former parish priest in the Diocese of Norwich.

Years later she came forward and sued the diocese and its former bishop, Daniel Reilly.
At least 15 young girls claim to have been molested by Shea in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, according to Doe's lawyers, Kelly and Robert Reardon, of the Reardon Law Firm in New London. Six other victims were prepared to testify that they had been molested by Shea and had complained to church officials but nothing was done about it.

The Norwich Diocese paid $1.1 million to another victim, known as Jane Doe No. 1, in late 2012. The Reardon lawyers represented that woman as well.

Kelly Reardon explained that Jane Doe No. 2 met Shea when he was pastor of St. Stephens Church in Quinebaug in eastern Connecticut. Though she was from Massachusetts, she had family members who were parishioners of the Connecticut church, as it was just over the state line.

Reardon said Shea began inviting himself over to Doe's parents' home in Webster, Mass. where he'd kiss and inappropriately touch the young girl. "Her earliest memories are of Father Shea touching her," said Kelly Reardon.

A national group that monitors allegations of child sexual abuse by clergy has focused attention this week on the Alabama case of David Lawrence Stone, a Catholic priest and former EWTN TV host who was arrested in 2013 and charged with sexual abuse of a minor under 12.

The minor he is charged with sexually abusing is his own son, now six years old.

Stone, 54, formerly known as Father Frances Mary Stone, was host of the TV program "Life on the Rock" on Eternal Word Television Network.

In court filings, Stone's attorneys have argued that the allegation of child abuse is false. Stone has been in a lengthy custody battle with Christina Presnell, the mother of his child, according to Jefferson County Court records.

A spokeswoman for SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, was in Birmingham on Tuesday to discuss the case. She said Bishop Robert J. Baker, head of the Catholic Diocese of Birmingham, should let people know about the allegation and that the priest still lives in Irondale.

An Irish abuse survivor who advises Pope Francis has called on him to remove a recently-appointed Chilean bishop, because he is alleged to have covered up for Chile's most notorious clerical abuser.

Marie Collins says she accepts as truthful the testimony of a male survivor that Bishop Juan Barros watched him being abused, yet did nothing about it.

Last weekend, supporters of Bishop Barros tried to drown out the chants of protest against his ordination in Osorno Cathedral.

They accuse the new bishop of protecting Chile's most notorious paedophile priest Fernando Karadima.

Four years ago he was found guilty by the Vatican of the serial abuse of teenage boys and banned from celebrating mass in public.

One of his victims testified that the newly-appointed Bishop saw Karadima molesting him.

But Bishop Barros has denied that he knew about the abuse: "I never imagined the serious abuses committed by this priest. I have never approved or participated in these gravely dishonest acts," he said.

A Cook County grand jury on Wednesday handed down an eight-count indictment against a prominent religious leader on charges of sex abuse and battery of a female school employee.

Mohammad Abdullah Saleem, 75, appeared in a Rolling Meadows courtroom filled with his supporters. The prominent Islamic scholar head of the popular Institute of Islamic Education in Elgin posted a $25,000 bond last month and remains free.

His attorneys, Raymond Wigell and Uma Rashid, entered a plea of not guilty.

"My client is holding up quite well," said Wigell. "This is a big stress on him. He is a 75-year-old man. We are not in a hurry with this case. We want to do it right, but the judge is holding our feet to the fire and making us do work in an expeditious manner."

An Elgin cleric on Wednesday pleaded not guilty to an eight-count indictment charging him with sexually abusing a 22-year-old employee at an Islamic school.

Mohammad Abdullah Saleem, a well-known Muslim cleric who founded and once headed the Institute of Islamic Education, an Elgin private school for students in sixth through 12th grades, appeared before Cook County Judge James Karahalios.

Saleem, 75, was accused last month of sexually abusing the employee from October 2013 through April 14, 2014.

ROLLING MEADOWS, Ill. (AP) — The head of a suburban Chicago Islamic school has pleaded not guilty to eight criminal counts alleging he sexually abused an employee.

Seventy-five-year-old Mohammad Abdullah Saleem entered the plea Wednesday before a Cook County judge. The founder of the Institute of Islamic Education in Elgin was indicted on charges including aggravated criminal sexual abuse, aggravated battery of a school employee and unlawful restraint.

If convicted, Saleem could face up to five years in prison. He's free on $250,000 bond.

The Arlington Heights Daily Herald reports (http://bit.ly/1EUpgLR ) Saleem's 22-year-old accuser has claimed he repeatedly hugged, touched and massaged her against her will in her school office.

On Wednesday, a member of a victims' rights group distributed flyers to parishioners entering the Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception as they entered noon Mass.

Barbara Dorris, outreach director for SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said she wanted to shine light on allegations made against a Mobile priest and the response by the Archdiocese of Mobile, as well as reach out to those who may have been affected.

Dorris, of St. Louis, Mo., said she handed out about 25 flyers entitled "Please help us protect kids." The flyers urged Archbishop of Mobile Thomas J. Rodi to suspend an accused Mobile priest and to warn people about an accused Jesuit who had previously lived in Mobile.

"We're concerned about the case with Father Savoie," said Dorris, referring to an allegation that Rev. Johnny Savoie had sex with a teenager at St. Lawrence Catholic Parish in Fairhope more than a decade ago. The allegation, which Savoie has denied, surfaced during an unrelated lawsuit regarding bullying at St. Pius X Catholic Parish in Mobile, where he is pastor.

It turns out Deacon Stephen Martinez not only filed a report with Archbishop Anthony Apuron about information he's received regarding allegations of sexual contact between Fr. Luis Camacho and a 17-year-old minor but has also written a letter about how he remains "gravely concerned with a growing pattern of sexual deviancy from RMS (Redemptoris Mater Seminary) trained priests and seminaries," he wrote.

As we reported Fr. Luis studied at RMS. The priest was arrested last week after police found him in a parked car at an Agat beach with a 17-year-old girl. He was arrested for Custodial Interference. Police said the girl was supposed to be in school at the time she was found with Fr. Luis. Although little information was released about what they were doing in the car, in his report filed with the Archbishop and Child Protective Services, Deacon Martinez alleged there was sexual contact between the two.

In the follow up letter written by Deacon Martinez he is concerned about Fr. Luis' connection to the NCW (Neocatechumenal Way), "It is my understanding that the girl whom Fr. Luis had cunnilingus with is a member of the NCW, and her parents as well. It appears that Fr. Luis used his position of authority as presbyter of an NCW community to take advantage of this child. This is a grave abuse of trust and a tendency which a proper psychological examination may have disclosed. Unfortunately this is not the only incident which raises alarm bells about problems within the RMS formation and screening process. I certainly hope the victim's participation in the NCW, and that of her parents, was not exploited to convince them not to press charges against Fr. Luis. Prudence would dictate this is a question an independent investigator should follow up upon," Martinez wrote.

The Deacon also alleged other disturbing actions by members of the clergy including Fr. Edivaldo. He alleged that in November 2013 the priest during a Eucharistic Congress at Ypao Beach warned young girls in attendance about boys, " the boys will treat girls like oranges, sucking the sweet juice from them, and when they are all dried up the boys will spit them out," he wrote in his letter to the Archbishop.

A prominent Islamic leader who was previously arrested in the alleged sexual abuse of an employee now faces additional charges after he was formally indicted.

Mohammed Abdullah Saleem, an imam who founded the Institute of Islamic Education in Elgin, appeared in court Wednesday, where an indictment was read charging him with aggravated criminal sexual abuse, criminal sexual abuse, attempted aggravated criminal sexual abuse, unlawful restraint and aggravated battery. Saleem, 75, had previously been charged with criminal sexual abuse and aggravated battery.

The older charges and Wednesday's indictment all stem from allegations that Saleem forced a 23-year-old woman to sit on his lap and fondled her last April when the woman worked for the school.

"He's a holy man, and these accusations are troubling," said Saleem's attorney, Raymond Wigell. He said he has not yet received a report on possible DNA evidence in the case. Prosecutors have said that a substance from the clothing the woman was wearing during the alleged abuse was determined to be semen, and they are running tests to determine if it matches Saleem.

Meyer Seewald, the founder of the sexual abuse watchdog Jewish Community Watch (JCW), uttered the name of a local Chabad rabbi to a packed room during a March 22 community event hosted by L.A. Congregation Shaarei Tefila.

The room fell silent. One person gasped, then another. One woman leaned into her friend, restating the rabbi’s name to make sure she heard right.

“I’m not one to name abusers at events,” the New York-based Seewald told the group, but this was a special circumstance. Last month, JCW posted the rabbi’s name and photo on its Wall of Shame, following an 18-month investigation by the organization of “his alleged sexual abuse of a number of female minors,” according to its website.

The Journal is not printing the rabbi’s name because he has not been charged with these allegations in court, but among the Los Angeles audience during Seewald’s recent visit, the rabbi’s name was well known — so it goes in the close-knit Los Angeles Orthodox community.

Sima Yarmush, now 27, gave her own testimony to the community at the event, accusing this rabbi of numerous acts of molestation. She was 14 at the time.

The state Superior Court has turned down Bernard Shero's request for a new trial.

In a 36-page decision posted online today, a panel of three Superior Court judges ruled that seven appeals issues raised by Shero at a hearing last Oct. 28th "are either waived or devoid of merit."

In their decision, the Superior Court judges affirmed the June 12, 2013 sentence imposed on Shero by Judge Ellen Ceisler. The judge sentenced Shero, 51, to 8 to 16 years in jail after he was convicted by a jury of rape of a child, attempted rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of a minor, and indecent assault.

In its decision, the Superior Court judges did not address the appeal filed on behalf of Shero's co-defendant, Father Charles Engelhardt, except in a footnote to say that the priest's case is "currently pending before this court." Judge Ceisler sentenced Father Engelhardt to 6 to 12 years in jail after being convicted of endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of a minor and indecent assault.

The 67-year-old priest died in prison last November. In spite of his client's death, defense lawyer Michael J. McGovern, and Engelhardt's religious order, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, had vowed to continue the appeal, to clear the priest's name. But the courts aren't bound by such sentiments. When an appellant dies, a court can decide that since there's no longer any controversy, the appeal is "abated."

A day after they ruled against an appeal from Bernard Shero, a panel of three state Superior Court judges came to the same conclusion regarding the appeal of Shero's co-defendant, the late Father Charles Engelhardt.

In a 25-page decision issued today, the Superior Court judges ruled that seven appeal issues raised by Engelhardt are "either waived or devoid of merit." The judges then affirmed Engelhardt's sentence of 6 to 12 years in jail after being convicted of endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of a minor and indecent assault.

The 67-year-old priest died last November in jail after serving nearly two years of his sentence. In their opinion, the judges note "that appellant has passed away during the pendency of this appeal. However, consistent with our cases, we decline to dismiss this appeal as moot in its entirety."

This was before the judges went through the appeal issues and dismissed them as "either waived or devoid of merit."

In Engelhardt's appeal, the defense had faulted Judge Ceisler for allowing Dr. Gerald Margiotti, a pediatrician, to testify as an expert witness to the jury.

Dr. Margiotti testified about the victim in the case, Billy Doe, saying that Billy's boyhood complaint of testicular pain was consistent with sexual abuse suffered after the alleged attack by Engelhardt.

[Update: On looking more closely at the list of priests, I’m astonished by some of the names I see there – clergy I wouldn’t have described as conservatives, let alone traditionalists. It reinforces my sense that vast numbers of priests, however much they admire Pope Francis, are worried about the direction of this pontificate – or, rather, its lack of direction.]

Cardinal Vincent Nichols has slapped down nearly 500 priests who signed a letter to the Catholic Herald expressing concern about the Synod on the Family this October, which is to debate sensitive questions of sexual morality. This is a significant blunder by the Cardinal that exposes both the inflexibility of his leadership style and – certainly in the case of some of the priests – lack of confidence in his stewardship of the Catholic Church in England Wales. Here’s today’s Catholic Herald report:

Priests should not conduct a debate about the October Family Synod through the press, Cardinal Nichols has said, following the publication of a letter signed by hundreds of priests, urging the synod to issue a ‘clear and firm proclamation’ upholding Church teaching on marriage.

In the letter, signed by almost 500 priests and published in this week’s Catholic Herald, they write: ‘We wish, as Catholic priests, to re-state our unwavering fidelity to the traditional doctrines regarding marriage and the true meaning of human sexuality, founded on the Word of God and taught by the Church’s Magisterium for two millennia.’

An archdiocese spokeswoman could not be immediately reached for comment.

The suit states that the Rev. Nicholas Assi, the assistant pastor at St. Basil’s Catholic Church in Los Angeles, was assigned to American Martyrs Catholic Church in Manhattan Beach as an assistant pastor from 2009 until last May 2. Assi was known as Father Nick and he became a friend of the Bergin family while at American Martyrs, the suit states. He often brought Middle Eastern treats for Bergin’s children and “was always warm and friendly,” the suit states.

A longtime volunteer at a Catholic church in Manhattan Beach has filed suit against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles alleging that a priest sexually molested her while she was arranging flowers in preparation for Sunday Mass.

Bergin, a mother of three who said she has taught religious education and served as a Eucharistic minister, alleged that she was approached from behind last April and touched inappropriately by Nicholas Assi, a priest at American Martyrs Church.

In an interview prior to the suit being filed, the archdiocese said it had investigated the complaint and that Assi had been placed on leave and then eventually reassigned to St. Basil Catholic Church in Koreatown. The archdiocese said Assi remained a “priest in good standing.”

Manhattan Beach police also investigated the allegations but no charges were filed. A detective who worked on the investigation said Assi refused to talk with police without an attorney present, and that police never met with him.

Bergin alleged that Assi came up behind her while she was trimming flowers in the sacristy and pressed his nose against her neck and began breathing deeply as he put his hand under her shirt.

WARSAW — A former priest was sentenced Wednesday to seven years in prison on charges of sexually abusing eight children in Poland and the Dominican Republic, a spokesman for the regional court in Warsaw said.

The former priest, Wojciech Gil, who was charged with committing 10 crimes, eight of which related to the sexual abuse of boys under the age of 15, will also have to pay his victims compensation totaling about $43,000.

Mr. Gil, 36, who did not appear in the courtroom in Wolomin, near Warsaw, on Wednesday, avoided a full trial by offering on Friday to serve a prison term. Under Polish law, Mr. Gil, who led a parish in the Dominican Republic for nearly a decade, did not have to plead guilty. But the deal had to be accepted by the judge and the prosecutors who represented the Polish and Dominican victims, and the prosecutors had to present firm evidence of Mr. Gil’s guilt.

Manhattan Beach, CA - (FOX 11 / CNS) A married Catholic woman is suing the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and an assistant pastor after he allegedly touched her in an inappropriate way at a South Bay church last year.

An archdiocese spokeswoman could not be immediately reached for comment.

The suit states that the Rev. Nicholas Assi, the assistant pastor at St. Basil's Catholic Church in Los Angeles, was assigned to American Martyrs Catholic Church in Manhattan Beach as an assistant pastor from 2009 until last May 2. Assi was known as Father Nick and he became a friend of the Bergin family while at American Martyrs, the suit states. He often brought Middle Eastern treats for Bergin's children and "was always warm and friendly," the suit states.

But last April 17, while doing volunteer work in the sacristy, Assi came up from behind Bergin, put his arms around her and whispered, "Hi, darling," the suit alleges.

A bishop being installed in his new assignment in southern Chile expressed disappointment with hundreds of black-clad demonstrators who interrupted the ceremony by marching into a cathedral and shouting at him to leave the diocese, saying he protected a priest accused of sexual abuse.

“You have to distinguish between showing a disagreement in a good way and this, because interrupting a Mass is a big shame,” Bishop Juan Barros said in reference to the demonstration organised against him on March 21 while he was being installed as new bishop of Osorno.

Witnesses described the scene inside the Cathedral of St Matthew as chaotic.

The New York Times reported that television images showed clashes between the bishop’s supporters, who carried white balloons, and demonstrators, carrying black ones.
The demonstrators, numbering about 3,000 inside and outside the cathedral, according to local media reports, included politicians and members of Congress. They held signs and called for Bishop Barros to resign.

Conservatives are rightly angry at liberal bias in the media. There's a lot of it.

But the game works both ways. There's a huge conservative bias as well, and it follows a pattern.

The pattern is typically this. Someone in the Church does something horrifically awful and outrageously embarrassing, something that can't possibly be defending or excused. For several days the truth is out there and none of my DC (Defensive Catholic) friends comment on it either here or on Facebook or elsewhere. An awkward silence falls and the truth is simply ignored.

Then (typically) the Catholic Defense League or an organization like Catholic News Agency pipes up with a defense of the situation that is a real stretch of the imagination, but that provides a handy template for the reactionaries to use, and suddenly comboxes are filled everywhere with the rank and file DCs who have swallowed the template whole, who run with it and who don't look back.

With Bishop Finn, the lie that was being promulgated was that the priest's crime at the center of the scandal was not child pornography at all, that the priest in question was utterly innocent, and that Finn did all he could in the situation, that he was being persecuted for being a vocally orthodox bishop who was firm on pro life issues, and that this is why folks in Kansas City were out to crucify him, the whole case against Finn being trumped up.

But the truth was just the opposite. In fact, not only (in that case) were the pictures in question child porn, but the perpetrator priest was sentenced to fifty years in prison for producing the hundreds of images, using his own parishioners as victims, some under the age of three. And for years prior, Finn not only refused to look into or even acknowledge any of the many complaints about this priest's behavior, some of which came directly from the principal of the school that most of the victims attended, he also stonewalled once the child porn came to light, failed to inform or warn any of the families of the victims, gave the priest continued access to children, was complicit in the destruction of evidence, spent $1.4 million of diocesan money defending himself against two misdemeanor charges in court, only alerted the police when forced to, and, in short, put children at risk and failed to get the offending priest any serious help or counseling.

Pope Francis must hope that his swift, decisive action against Cardinal Keith O'Brien will draw the line under a scandal that done great harm to the Church in Scotland and beyond.

The Pope's personal intervention lies behind the announcement last Friday that O'Brien is surrendering the duties and trappings of a cardinal and the repetition of his profound apologies for sexual misdemeanours. It is an appropriate sanction against the breathtaking hypocrisy of a church leader who made advances to seminarians and young priests yet nevertheless felt entitled to rail against homosexuality and gay marriage in the most blunt terms.

A story such as O'Brien's is a reminder of the human weakness that is common to us all. It is hard to find it in our hearts to forgive someone who has betrayed our trust. As Christians we have to be merciful but it's tough. Mercy must be accompanied by justice. Forgiving him does not mean the full implications of what he did should remain hidden.

We still don't know whether O'Brien was someone who sporadically shed in his inhibitions when he'd had a few drinks and then felt profoundly ashamed or whether his was a pattern of coercive behaviour and abuse of power and patronage.

The quote from one of O'Brien's accusers saying that the report prepared for Francis "is “hot enough to burn the varnish” off the Pope’s desk" suggests the latter but we cannot be sure without seeing this report for ourselves. The report was prepared by Archbishop Charles Scicluna, previously chief prosecutor at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, someone who has the drive and determination to uncover the truth. That is apparent from his work in exposing the sickening corruption of Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ.

A former Catholic priest told his alleged abuse victim to "move on" and stop living in the past when she asked for an apology during a covertly recorded phone call almost 20 years later, a court has heard.

Father Edward Evans, now 85, went on trial in the ACT Supreme Court on Wednesday over allegations he abused a young girl at his home on five occasions and at Cooleman Court on another.

The girl and her family attended his German-language church in Braddon, and were close with Father Evans, who was often referred to as "Father Eddie".

The Crown, represented by Sara Gul, alleges the priest put his hands down the girl's pants and grabbed her bottom three times, and digitally penetrated her twice in his kitchen.

It is also alleged he grabbed her breast while they sat alone in a car outside of Cooleman Court, before pulling her on top of him into a straddling position.

Priests should not conduct a debate about the October Family Synod through the press, Cardinal Nichols has said, following the publication of a letter signed by hundreds of priests, urging the synod to issue a “clear and firm proclamation” upholding Church teaching on marriage.

In the letter, signed by almost 500 priests and published in this week’s Catholic Herald, they write: “We wish, as Catholic priests, to re-state our unwavering fidelity to the traditional doctrines regarding marriage and the true meaning of human sexuality, founded on the Word of God and taught by the Church’s Magisterium for two millennia.”

In a statement, a spokesman for Cardinal Nichols said that the press was not the medium for conducting dialogue of this sort.

Priests says that doctrine and practice must 'remain firmly and inseparably in harmony'

Almost 500 priests in Britain have signed a letter urging those attending this year’s family synod to issue a “clear and firm proclamation” upholding Church teaching on marriage.

In the letter, published in this week’s Catholic Herald, the priests write: “We wish, as Catholic priests, to re-state our unwavering fidelity to the traditional doctrines regarding marriage and the true meaning of human sexuality, founded on the Word of God and taught by the Church’s Magisterium for two millennia.”

Last year’s extraordinary synod provoked heated debate on the question of whether remarried Catholics should be permitted to receive Holy Communion – a proposal presented by retired German Cardinal Walter Kasper.

MUNICH, Germany - A German cardinal has publicly opposed the words of two German bishops who have suggested that the nation’s Church can form its own policies without direction from Rome.

Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes published a letter earlier this month objecting to the pronouncements of prominent leaders of the Church in Germany that the nation’s bishops’ conference will pursue its own program of pastoral care for marriages and family regardless of the outcome of October’s Synod on the Family.

At a Feb. 25 press conference following the German bishops’ plenary assembly, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, who is president of the conference, stated, “We are not a branch of Rome. Each conference of bishops is responsible for pastoral care in its cultural context and must preach the Gospel in its own, original way. We cannot wait for a synod to tell us how we have to shape pastoral care for marriage and family here.”

ROME Pope Francis has asked Catholics around the world -- at every level of the church -- to stay away from gossiping about the upcoming Synod on the Family and to instead pray fervently that it will result in a church more committed to witnessing God's love for all.

"There is not need of gossip!" the pope insisted strongly while talking about the synod during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square Wednesday. "Everyone -- pope, cardinals, bishops, priests, religious, and lay faithful -- we are all called to pray for the synod."

Inviting those in the square and Catholics around the world to say such prayers "with holy insistence," Francis asked that the prayers "may be animated by the compassion of the Good Shepherd for his flock, especially for persons and families who for various reasons are 'troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.'"

Cardinal Vincent Nichols has rebuked the almost 500 priests in England and Wales who have signed a letter resisting any change to church teaching at the Vatican’s next Synod on the Family, saying that discussions around the Synod are "not best conducted through the press".

The 461 priests were responding to two letters, seen by The Tablet and now to be published in the Catholic Herald, sent by a group of a dozen conservative-minded clergy. As The Tablet first reported, the first letter was a draft to be submitted for publication in the press, while the second, signed by the 12 clergy, set out the reasons for agreeing to the first.

The first letter urges those who will participate in October’s synod of bishops to end the “confusion” that was caused at last year’s gathering, where some bishops put forward ways for the Church to be more welcoming to gay Catholics as well as for remarried divorcees to receive Communion. The letter states fidelity to the Church’s traditional doctrines of marriage and sexuality, and affirmed the traditional discipline of the reception of the sacraments (which bars Communion for the divorced and remarried).

WARSAW (Reuters) - A Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing children in Poland and the Dominican Republic was sentenced to seven years in jail by a Polish court on Wednesday.

The priest will also have to pay his eight victims a total of 155,000 zlotys ($41,735) in compensation, and will not be allowed to work with minors for 15 years, said judge Alina Bielinska at the regional court in Wolomin, central Poland.

The priest, who under Polish law can only be identified as Wojciech G., was suspended by his religious order in the rural Dominican parish of Juncalito last year after local residents accused him of molesting altar boys, according to the church.

He was arrested after returning to his native Poland and was tried on 10 charges relating to child sex abuse and possessing pornographic images of children. The charges carried a maximum penalty of 15 years in jail.

The Dominican priest charged with the sexual abuse of a 42-year-old woman, Fr Charles Fenech, has been cleared of criminal libel filed against him by Edgar Bonnici Cachia, a male friend of the alleged victim of Fr Fenech.

Mr Bonnici Cachia had filed the case against Fr Fenech, claiming that the priest had told the alleged victim to inform the ecclesiastical authorities that she was forced to file a report against him by Bonnici Cachia, back in February 2012.

The libel case was filed in May 2013 and Fr Fenech was notified in July 2014.

The court noted that Bonnici Cachia brought forward no proof that substantiates the argument and that the alleged victim's testimony does not indicate that she was forced to make such statements against the Dominican priest.

The Dominican priest accused of sexually abusing a vulnerable woman has been cleared of criminal libel in a case filed by a male friend of his alleged victim, after a court held that the case had been filed almost two years too late.

Bonnici Cachia had alleged that in February 2012, the priest had made the female victim inform the ecclesiastical authorities that she “had been forced to file her criminal complaint against the priest by Bonnici Cachia.”

The offending affidavit by the victim had been presented in court in March 2013 and Bonnici Cachia had personally filed his police complaint in May 2013. The criminal libel case had begun in July 2014.

A criminal libel case instituted against Dominican priest Charles Fenech was dismissed today because it was time barred.

Fr Fenech, who faces separate charges of sexually abusing a woman, had been sued by Edgar Bonnici Cachia, who alleged that the priest had forced the alleged victim to say that it was he (Bonnici Cachia) who had forced her to file a criminal complaint about the abuse.

But Magistrate Francesco Depasquale ruled that the complaint was filed outside the three-month time window, rendering it time-barred.

Fr Fenech is facing separate charges before a different magistrate in connection with alleged violent sexual abuse against a mentally-unstable 42-year-old woman from Zabbar. He also stands charged with holding the woman against her will and committing indecent acts in public.

Fr Fenech, who has been a Dominican friar for almost three decades, has spent most of his priesthood surrounded by young people who flock to the numerous spiritual, cultural, educational and sports events organised by the Kerygma Movement he founded in 1984. He was removed from his position shortly after the sexual abuse charges were made public by The Sunday Times of Malta.

A Hunter region Catholic brother, extradited from New Zealand to face child sexual abuse charges, has had his case adjourned for two months to allow his lawyers time to digest the enormous police brief.

Bernard Kevin McGrath, 67, is facing 252 child sex offences, relating to 35 victims and dating back to the 1970s.

The alleged offences happened in the Lake Macquarie region, near Newcastle.

McGrath's case was mentioned briefly in Newcastle, and the ABC has been told the brief of evidence is 8,000 pages.

A Canberra priest (Father Edward Evans, aged 85) began facing a trial in the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court on 25 March 2015. He is charged with alleged offences against a child in the 1990s. Father Evans is based in Canberra, where he has been acting as a chaplain to the German-speaking community. Among other duties, Father Evans has been associated with St Patrick's Catholic Church in Braddon (Canberra), where German-language Masses have been conducted on Sundays.

Fr Evans was interviewed by police in 2013 and was charged with three acts of indecency between 1994 and 1997. He was accused of indecently touching a girl three times, twice when she was between 11 and 12, and a third time when she was 13. He has pleaded not guilty to the allegations.

Father Edward Evans appeared in the Magistrates Court of the Australian Capital Territory for the first time on 7 June 2013, when the charges were officially filed. The court heard that he had surrendered his passports to police. He was released on bail pending his subsequent court proceedings. Meanwhile, the police investigation was continuing, with the possibility of additional charges being laid.

The case came up for mention in the same court on 3 October 2013. The prosecution sought to have the matter committed for trial in the ACT Supreme Court, arguing that the additional charges, when laid, would require the matter go before a judge, rather than a magistrate.

(CBS) – Major reorganization and downsizing is underway at the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Archbishop Blase Cupich, in office for barely four months, has moved quickly to completely reshape the Archdiocese of Chicago under totally new leadership.

CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports Cupich is bringing in his own people, dealing with financial reality in keeping with the tone being set by Pope Francis.

He’s replaced some, offered early retirement to many others in top management, and is even shaking up seminaries. At the same time, he is inviting supporters to an event, which may or may not happen.

Almost immediately after his installation, the archbishop moved to replace his vicar general, his CEO, fired his school superintendent, and has now replaced his moderator of the curia, in charge of 800 priests.

But inside the new chancery offices, the recently remodeled former seminary, where Cupich was announced as the new archbishop last fall, the changes will soon be even more extreme.

A prayer rally is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. today in Hagatna, in an effort to heal a division within the local Catholic community, according to one of the organizers.

The gathering will be held on the front steps of the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica in Hagatna and everyone, including Archbishop Anthony Apuron and people from other faiths, are invited.

Lou Klitzkie, one of the organizers, said the rally is part of the lay Catholics' efforts to try to heal the division in the local Catholic community. Over the past several months, many of the island's Catholics have been divided by a line in which one side supports the Neocatechumenal Way movement and those who want to keep the old traditions of the local Catholic church.

Klitzkie said she hopes the prayer rally will get the attention of the Vatican to help heal the rift.

Shortly after George Pell was named Archbishop of Melbourne, he instituted several reforms at the archdiocesan seminary, including daily Mass and the daily celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours, both of which had fallen by the wayside in the preceding years. The seminary faculty, enthusiastic proponents of Catholic Lite, thought to call the archbishop’s bluff and informed him that, were he to persist in such draconian measures, they would resign en masse.

The archbishop thanked them for the courtesy of giving him a heads-up, accepted their resignations on the spot, and got on with the reform of the Melbourne seminary—and of the rest of the archdiocese.

The defenders of the status quo in the Vatican may have been unaware of this episode when they recently tried to take down the man chosen by Pope Francis to clean up the financial mess the Argentinian pope inherited two years ago. Like their predecessors in Melbourne, the leaders of a nasty campaign of personal accusation against Cardinal Pell, conducted by leaks to the ever-sleazy Italian media, failed. I hope that failure will be a lesson to such scoundrels in the future: don’t mess with a former Australian football star who likes contact sports. That may be hope-against-hope. But we are obliged to believe that conversion, even among curialists native to the boot-shaped peninsula, is not beyond the power of God’s grace.

Pope Francis was elected by a conclave determined that the next pontificate should clean up what Msgr. Ronald Knox used to call the “engine room” of the Barque of Peter. In the ensuing two years, there’s not been a whole lot of progress in curial reform. The striking exception to that rule is the result of the pope’s most successful reformist appointment: that of George Pell as head of a new super-dicastery in the Roman Curia, the Secretariat for the Economy, with a mandate to make the Vatican “boringly successful” as a “model of good financial practices,” as Cardinal Pell likes to tell reporters.

An early intervention program for very young victims of sexual abuse is needed to avoid chronic adult mental health illness across Australia, a royal commission has heard.

Wayne Chamley from Broken Rites, a support group for people abused in the Catholic Church, said on Wednesday a national redress scheme for abuse survivors should include an early intervention program for children between the ages of three and 12.

He was giving evidence at a royal commission hearing into how to compensate victims of childhood sexual abuse.

Dr Chamley said Broken Rites supported a national redress scheme but would like to see an early intervention scheme as well.

Survivors of child sexual abuse will band together to force Australian governments to back a national compensation scheme.

The opening day of a three-day hearing into redress for thousands of people who were abused as children in institutions heard the federal government had rejected a proposal for a national scheme.

The knock-back was described as disappointing by Peter McClellan, the chair of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Nicky Davis, who heads up the Australian branch of the international advocacy group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, claimed the federal and state governments were telling survivors to "suffer in silence".

Only three state governments, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania have opted to appear at the hearing. The federal government declined to attend and filed a two-and-a-half page submission with the point-blank `no' to a national scheme.

Christian Minister Whose Father Sexually Assaulted Girls in Congregation Teaches Churches How to Guard Against Pedophile

By LEAH MARIEANN KLETT (NEWS@GOSPELHERALD.COM)

After discovering that his father, an Evangelical pastor, had sexually assaulted multiple young women throughout his career, Rev. Jimmy Hinton has made it his life's work to teach churches how to guard against pedophiles.

Jimmy's father, John Wayne Hinton, shared the gospel from the pulpit of Somerset Church of Christ for nearly 27 years before retiring in 2001. Inspired by his father to enter the ministry, Jimmy took over the pulpit in 2009. However, just two years later, a woman approached Jimmy and informed him that his beloved father had molested her when she was a young girl.

Sadly, by the end of the conversation, Jimmy knew the woman was telling the truth, and was forced to contact the authorities.

"I'm not saying I wanted to believe that about my dad," he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "Doing the right thing isn't doing what we want to believe. It's about doing the right thing."

A Bronx cop who is also a minister was arrested Tuesday for using his position at a local church to lure a 16-year-old female parishioner into having sex with him.

Vladimir Sosa, 38, was busted by officers with the Internal Affairs Bureau and charged with three counts of rape after the teen’s mother discovered incriminating texts between the two, court papers said.

Sosa works out of The Bronx’s 46th Precinct, which patrols the University Heights section.

Sosa met the girl while running a youth program at a church the victim attended, sources said.

Chassadi Thompson was 14 when she found herself standing outside a Loudoun County gas station one night with nothing but the clothes on her back.

Thompson was dumped there in 2003, she said, by members of Calvary Temple, a Sterling-based Pentecostal church off Tripleseven Road, after spending at least six hours being questioned by some of the church's leadership – including the man whom she had just accused of sexual assault.

Now 26, the Maryland woman, along with one other victim, have come forward, alleging rampant sexual assault within the church among members of its leadership, teachers and teacher's aides.

The women paint a disturbing picture of an atmosphere where physical and sexual abuse were not only tolerated and encouraged, but “taken care of” within the church should a victim come forward.

But Thompson and the other woman, whose name is being withheld by the Times-Mirror because she fears for her safety, say they can't stay silent anymore.

By breaking their silence, they're hoping to find closure.

Liz Mills, spokeswoman for the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, said March 19 that detectives are investigating allegations against the church.

BRONX (WABC) -- An NYPD officer has been released on his own recognizance after he was arrested for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old girl.

Vladimir Sosa, 38, is charged with three counts of rape, three counts of criminal sex act, five counts of sexual misconduct, two counts of third-degree sex abuse and acting in a manner injurious to a child less than 17.

Police said Sosa met the girl over seven months in 2014, but accusations just came to light in February when the teen's mother found incriminating texts.

The officer is assigned to the 46th Precinct in the Bronx. He has been suspended without pay from the force.

Officials said Sosa is a pastor at a church on 180th Street where he met the girl. Police said they had sex in the home where he lived with his mother.

VELLORE:A 50- year-old temple priest was sentenced to 23-year rigorous imprisonment (RI) by the Mahila Court in Vellore on Tuesday for abducting, sexually abusing and murdering a five-year-old girl 3 years ago.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on him. The Judge A Nazeer Ahmed found the accused, Kumar (alias) Kumara Gurukal of Pandiyan Nagar in Gudiayttam, guilty of abduction, sexual abuse, homicide and concealment of evidence. The five-year-old child, Lakshmi (name changed), was studying in Class I in Annai Indira Gandhi Middle School at Pandiyan Nagar.

She went missing after lunch break on September 19, 2011. The girl’s father filed a missing person case with Gudiyattam Town Police. On September 21, two days after the girl went missing, residents found the girl’s body floating in a well near Gurukal’s house.

A victim of child sex abuse by a Catholic priest has said the federal government “would prefer us to suffer in silence” after it declined to support proposals for a multi-billion dollar national compensation scheme for those abused as children.

Ms Davis, who was abused from the age of 12 by a member of the Passionist Order north of Sydney, was giving evidence at a royal commission hearing into the proposals, at which the federal government has also declined to appear.

“We just have to demand there be a national scheme. What the government was saying this morning to survivors was that they would prefer us to suffer in silence, to not reveal their shortcomings to not make them face their financial responsibilities.

“It says ‘we don’t want you to recover’. We actually have a right to recover,” Ms Davis said.

In March of 1965, to protest the lack of voting rights for African American citizens and violence against civil rights activists, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) planned a 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery to talk to Alabama Governor George Wallace. Wallace promised he would prevent the demonstrators from marching, but despite his warnings, they set off from Selma on March 7, 1965.

They made it to the Edmund Pettus Bridge before they met state troopers equipped with nightsticks and tear gas. The ensuing violence, which became known as Bloody Sunday, was broadcast on national television and prompted a condemnation of the brutality from then president Lyndon B. Johnson.

Two days later, another march began, this time led by Martin Luther King, Jr. The SCLC had asked for a court order preventing the the police from stopping the march, but since it had not yet gone through, the marchers turned back at the bridge. That night, a Unitarian Universalist minister by the name of James Reeb was beaten by members of the Ku Klux Klan. He died two days later. ...

Among them was Jim Muller, class of 1965, a senior pre-med student at Notre Dame.

Muller, an Indianapolis native, had not been involved in the Civil Rights Movement, but voting rights for African Americans was a prominent issue at Notre Dame. Few black students attended the University, but University President Emeritus Fr. Theodore Hesburgh was on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and he had imparted his vision of equality on many of his students.

Muller said Reeb’s murder spurred him to action.

“We were all horrified that a minister would be beaten to death just because he was helping a minority group get voting rights,” Muller said. “So a call went out from the march for people to join them, and that’s what I heard.” ...

The organization, and Muller through it, won the 1985 Peace Prize. Over the next several decades, Muller also started Voices of Faith, a Catholic discussion group born from outrage over priest sexual abuse scandals. A cardiologist, Muller also started a company, Infraredx, which manufacturers spectrometry systems to identify plaques that might cause heart attacks.

“I have chosen to help with other large social problems,” he said. “The way I’ve put it, I’ve had the privilege of working against nuclear war, child abuse by priests and heart attacks. Those targets are things that are good to work against, and they’re motivating, and I’ve had the privilege of working with a lot of good people on those projects.”

These alleged disturbing details extend to other seminarians involved in the Neocatechumenal Way.

Guam - The saga continues in the priest sex scandal, this time more disturbing details are being alleged and not just with Father Luis Camacho, but with other members of the neocatechumenal way.

It’s the second letter Deacon Steve Martinez has written to Archbishop Anthony Apuron over Father Luis Camacho’s sex scandal involving a 17-year-old female student. Deacon Steve alleges that, based on his understanding, Father Luis and the student engaged in oral sex.

“This is a grave abuse of trust and a tendency which a proper psychological examination may have disclosed,” writes Deacon Steve.

He points out the irony in Father Luis’ case. He says Father Luis was a product of the teachings of the neocatechumenal way led by Father Edivaldo--teachings Deacon Steve says should be investigated.

For instance, he says on one occasion, Father Edivaldo warned young girls about boys, saying boys will treat girls like oranges, “sucking the sweet juice from them and when they are all dried up the boys will spit them out.” Other examples include public confessions in which seminarians would disclose personal struggles that include "excessive masturbation."

March 24, 2015

Hopes for a single, national scheme to provide assistance and compensation for victims of child sexual abuse have been dealt a heavy blow, with the federal government stating that such a scheme is too complex, time consuming and costly.

The statements were made in a blunt, two-page submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which is trying to develop a redress scheme for those who have suffered abuse.

On Wednesday, the chairman of the commission, Justice Peter McClellan expressed disappointment that, while the Commonwealth government had accepted the need for "effective address" when it set up the commission, it now did not support what evidence showed was the most effective scheme.

Under the scheme proposed by the commission this year, the Commonwealth would have responsibility as a co-ordinator, and also as a "funder of last resort" - to provide financial support for victims when the institutions responsible were insolvent.

"It seems clear from the Commonwealth's submission that it does not support a single national redress scheme," Justice McClellan told a hearing, to discuss providing redress to victims, that was held in central Sydney on Wednesday.

Federal government's refusal to set up national fund for child sex abuse victims criticised by commissioner

Australian Associated Press
Tuesday 24 March 2015

The federal government’s refusal to establish a national compensation scheme for child sex abuse victims is disappointing, Justice Peter McClellan, the royal commissioner, has said.

In an opening address on Wednesday to a public hearing into redress for abuse survivors, McClellan said it was disappointing that the approach most likely to ensure a “just, fair and consistent outcome for all victims” was not supported by the Commonwealth.

The hearing before a full bench of six commissioners has received submissions from governments and institutions as well as support groups for victims, and has invited them all to speak.

Six governments, including the federal government, declined the invitation to speak.

In a two-and-a-half page submission, the Commonwealth said a national scheme was unworkable.

Child sex abuse royal commission: Federal Government does not back national support scheme for victims, wants institutions to accept responsibility

By Jessica Kidd

The Federal Government does not support a single national support scheme for victims of institutionalised child sexual abuse and believes those institutions should foot the bill, a royal commission has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has invited 38 government and non-government organisations to present spoken submissions outlining their proposals for a redress scheme for survivors of abuse.

The commission released a consultation paper in January which outlined a number of options for redress, including a single national scheme led by the Commonwealth.

But in a written submission to the royal commission, the Federal Government has made it clear it does not support a national scheme because of the significant time and resources it would require.

Santiago, Chile, Mar 24, 2015 / 05:11 pm (CNA).- A group of protesters attempted to stop the installation of Bishop Juan Barros Madrid as the new bishop of Osorno in southern Chile, pushing the bishop and throwing objects at him during the March 21 Mass.

The protestors accuse Bishop Barros of covering up sexual abuse committed by Fr. Fernando Karadima. The bishop has repeatedly denied it. The story was picked up this weekend by international news media.

Here are some keys to understanding what has happened since Jan. 10 of this year, when Pope Francis named Bishop Juan Barros as the new bishop of Osorno:

1. Who is Fernando Karadima Farina?

Fr. Karadima fostered the vocation of some 40 priests, including Bishop Juan Barros, who decades ago belonged to Karadima’s closest circle of friends. When reports of sexual abuse and other scandal surrounding Karadima surfaced, Bishop Barros, like a number of other prelates, at first did not believe the accusations.

The judge in the civil case dismissed the charges because the alleged abuse was too far in the past. Nevertheless, in February 2011, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican completed its own investigation and declared 84-year-old Karadima guilty. He was sent to a life of solitude and prayer.

The news of the sentence surprised bishops, priests and lay people who viewed the priest as a role model and considered the initial accusations as an attack on the Church.

2. Juan Carolos Cruz and the accusers

Three of Karadima’s reported victims are accusing Bishop Barros of covering up the priest’s abuses. The accusations do not agree with the investigation carried out by the Vatican. Juan Carlos Cruz is the most well known of the accusers. He lives in the United States and is often asked by national and international news media for comments on what is happening in the Chilean Church.

After Bishop Juan Barros was appointed as Bishop of Orsono, Cruz told CNN Chile that the Chilean Episcopal Conference and Pope Francis were giving Karadima’s victims “a slap in the face.” This has created international media attention.

3. Bishop Barros’ Defense

Bishop Juan Barros and three other bishops close to Karadima supported the decision of the Holy See in April of 2011 and denied having known about his double life. They declared in a statement that “with great sorrow we have accepted the sentence declaring him guilty of serious offences condemned by the Church. Like so many, we learned about this situation and its diverse and multiple effects with deep astonishment and pain.”

In a letter addressed to the faithful of the Osorno diocese days before his installation, Bishop Barros reiterated that “I never had any knowledge of any accusation concerning Father Karadima when I was the Secretary for Cardinal Juan Francisco Fresno and I never had any knowledge nor did I even imagine such grave abuses as this priest committed against his victims. I neither approved nor participated in those actions.”

There are good reasons why Cardinal Keith Michael Patrick O'Brien of Scotland should have participated in the last Conclave.

(I'll get to that in a minute.)

Instead, he resigned as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh just before the papal election got underway. Four men had gone public and accused him of pressuring them into having sex years ago when they were junior priests (one was actually an adult seminarian). The papers ran wild with the story and the cardinal could no longer deny it.

“I… admit that there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal,” he finally confessed publicly on March 3, 2013, before going into seclusion.

Last Friday, a full two years later and following a Vatican “investigation,” a note from Rome announced that Cardinal O'Brien had freely relinquished “the rights and privileges” — but, bizarrely, not the title — of a being a cardinal. Even weirder, Church officials said he could continue wearing his cardinal attire, but only in private.

It appears that a few more departures are imminent among the more senior staff and advisers of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

One resignation that I am told has been received but not announced involves a relatively longstanding employee in the office of what is now called 'Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment'. Interestingly, this employee was involved early on in the 'witch trials' of which I have recently written, including in the matter of the trumped up charges against the priest who secretly recorded Archbishop Nienstedt.

Other significant resignations include members of the Archdiocese's Clergy Review Board (which handles accusations involving minors) and the Ministerial Standards Board (which handles all other issues of clergy misconduct). According to an email sent to priests earlier this month by Tim O'Malley, the Director of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment, the Archbishop has accepted the recommendation of the 'Safe Environment and Ministerial Standards Task Force' that the two boards be combined, which will bring the Archdiocese back exactly to the disastrous situation that led to the horrid decisions with which we are all too familiar (remember the Clergy Review Board recommendations regarding Father Michael Keating, and the implementation or non-implementation of those recommendations?). Perhaps in acknowledgement of the fact that this move is unlikely to result in the application of ministerial standards or the creation of a safe environment, O'Malley's email also indicated that while 'some current Board members will continue to serve; others have chosen not to'.

Almost exactly a year ago, Robert Mickens was suspended from his post as Vatican correspondent for the London Tablet, after he showed his contempt for Pope Benedict XVI with a Facebook comment that he was looking forward to “the Rat’s funeral.” Usually Mickens was more discreet, but that crude comment tells you what you need to know about his perspective.

Having subsequently left The Tablet, Mickens now writes for Global Pulse, a web site that views Catholic affairs from a strongly “progressive” slant. There he has posted another revealing comment, this time on the decision by Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien to renounce his privileges in the aftermath of a homosexual scandal.

In a quick series of one-sentence paragraphs that convey a staccato effect, to capture the reader’s attention, Mickens writes about the question of homosexuality:

A West Island man has been sentenced to two years less a day in prison for possession and distribution of child pornography.

William Kokesch is the former deacon of St. Edmund Church in Beaconsfield.He was arrested in December 2012 and early in 2014 he pleaded guilty to producing, possessing and distributing child pornography.

His sentence is 12 months for distribution of child pornography, 14 months for the publication of child pornography, and two years less a day for possession of child pornography, with all three sentences to be served concurrently.

Following his release Kokesch will be on probation for three years, and will be subjected to a ten year ban on using the internet or being near children under the age of 16.

Former West Island deacon William Kokesch has been sentenced to two years, less a day in jail on child pornography charges.

Kokesch appeared in court on Tuesday morning for his sentencing.

The sentence was a joint recommendation of the crown and defence.

In February 2014, Kokesch pleaded guilty to three charges: possession, production and distribution of child pornography.

Kokesch addressed the court to express his regret.

In a letter addressed to the judge, he wrote:

"I wish to use this occasion to publicly express my deep remorse and regret for the actions which have led to my being here before you. The past 27 months have allowed me to recognize the source of character flaws that played a role in what I did. Through the help and support of an extraordinarily loving wife, some close friends and neighbours, my family, self-help groups and the professional and spiritual counseling I am undergoing, I have grown greatly as a person, rebuilding my life into one that is wholesome and good."

HAGÅTÑA — Last week, after receiving a phone call from a person about the Rev. Luis Camacho’s arrest, Deacon Steve Martinez said he was obligated to report the allegations of sexual contact to the proper authorities including the archbishop and the government.

On March 18, Martinez sent a letter to Child Protective Services and Archbishop Anthony Apuron relating what he was told about Rev. Luis Camacho’s arrest last week Tuesday. Martinez wrote that on March 17, Camacho illegally transported the 17-year-old girl from Southern High School without her parents’ permission.

Camacho reportedly drove the minor to a Subway restaurant and then to a remote beach in Agat “and had sexual contact with her and that the (Guam Police Department) arrested (Camacho),” Martinez wrote in his letter.

GPD said Camacho was booked and charged with custodial interference for being with a female minor who was not in school at the time they were found parked at the beach. Camacho was released from police custody the same day.

Chileans protested the appointment of a new bishop in the city of Osorno.

They accused Bishop Juan Barros of covering up for a priest who sexually abused many teenagers.

Hundreds of protesters stormed the Cathedral of San Mateo de Osorno during the ceremony installing Juan Barros as bishop of the city, according to Reuters. The event took place over the weekend, when the protesters, carrying black balloons, stormed interrupted the service and demanded Bishop Barros resign.

Bishop Barros has been accused of covering up the sexual abuses a priest by the name of Fernando Karadima committed in the 1980s. The Vatican found Karadima guilty of sexual abusing minors in 2011 and banned him from saying Mass; however, the victims could not pursue legal charges due to technicalities.

Hoping to prevent Bishop Barros' appointment, activists, victims, politicians and priests wrote to Pope Francis asking him to not follow through, as he had taken a stance against sexual abuse. However, their petition was ignored.

Survivors of child sexual abuse will hear on Wednesday how institutions - government and non-government - might compensate them.

At a public hearing in Sydney spokespeople from all jurisdictions as well as representatives from churches, charities and schools where children were abused will be asked to comment on possible redress schemes.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has published 44 submissions received after the publication in January of a consultation paper outlining scenarios for a national approach to redress for abuse victims.

The paper modelled a $4.3 billion scheme, which would be funded by both government and non-government agencies responsible for institutions in which children were sexually maltreated.

WATERLOO, IA (CBS2/FOX28) -- An allegation has been made that a priest who formally served with the Archdiocese of Dubuque sexually abused a young boy 30 years ago.

The victim spoke to CBS2 News Tuesday morning about his claim.

Jeff Buchheit says Fr. Leo Riley abused him at Resurrection Parish in Dubuque, he reported the incident to the Archdiocese of Dubuque in December.

Buchheit says the alleged abuse happened when he was in the 4th grade and serving as an altar boy. Buchheit says he felt he had to come forward and publicly talk about what happened. "I would say I've been dealing with aspects of it my entire life.

The realizations and understanding of what happened to me has been recent." The accusation is against Father Leo Riley. Riley began his work in the Dubuque Archdiocese in 1982 and served at a number of Iowa churches until he transferred to a Florida Archdiocese in 2002.

In a letter dated February 18th, 2015, Archbishop of Dubuque Michael O. Jackels confirmed he was notified of the claim in December 2014 and that it allegedly happened in 1985. At that time, Fr. Riley was assigned as an associate pastor at Resurrection Parish in Dubuque.

WATERLOO | A former Dubuque man has come forward with abuse claims against a former Iowa Catholic priest who served parishes in Northeast Iowa.

Jeff Buchheit said he decided to go public with the allegations against Rev. Leo Riley to raise awareness of child sexual abuse.

“A child victim’s voice is so soft and far too easy to go unnoticed. Kids need to be protected and given the tools to protect themselves,” Buchheit said.

“The fear of revealing that I had been sexual abused and being dismissed or victimized again was paralyzing. It has haunted every aspect of my life,“ he said “I will no longer allow that fear to define me; that starts with me saying publicly that it did happen.”

Buchheit said he was a fourth-grade altar boy at Resurrection School in Dubuque in October 1985 when the abuse began. He said occurred before school while serving a morning mass with Riley.

WATERLOO, Iowa — A former Dubuque man claims he was sexually abused by a Church of the Resurrection priest 30 years ago.

Jeff Buchheit, 39, said he was in fourth grade and serving as an altar boy when he was abused beginning in October 1985 by the Rev. Leo Riley, who served as a Resurrection associate pastor in 1985 and 1986.

Teacher accused of child abuse at St Ignatius College, Riverview faces trial in another state

March 24, 2015

Emma Partridge

A teacher accused of sexually abusing a student at one of Sydney's most prestigious private schools more than 30 years ago is facing trial for historical child abuse charges in another state.

NSW Police began investigating the sexual abuse allegations made by a former St Ignatius College, Riverview student after they learned the same teacher was before the courts charged with a number of child sex offences.

On Monday principal Paul Hine sent a letter to former students informing them of an allegation that concerned "child sexual abuse over 30 years ago".

The Provincial of the Australian Jesuits, Fr Brian McCoy, said the allegations Mr Hine referred to were dealt with ten years ago and that the victim had come forward to ensure it happened to no-one else, but was adamant about not pursuing charges.

"The matter to which he refers is one dealt with over ten years ago in NSW – when a courageous former student brought a complaint to the Jesuits alleging sexual abuse at Riverview in the 1980s," Father McCoy said.

The principal of one of Sydney’s most prestigious private schools says he is aware a number of ­former staff may be found to have been involved in child abuse after the school asked all its former students to report any such allegations from their time at the college.

It follows the revelation a former pupil of St Ignatius’ College, Riverview, on Sydney’s lower north shore, has alleged he was sexually abused by a teacher who worked at the school between 1979 and 82.

That teacher, who is still alive, is understood also to be the subject of similar allegations relating to his time at another Jesuit-run school in Adelaide during the early 1980s.

Riverview principal Paul Hine said he had contacted about 6500 former pupils of the school, asking them to come forward if they knew of any similar allegations.

A lawyer and corporate manager for a controversial religious sect based near Shawano has been barred from practicing law in Wisconsin for a year, in part for publicly smearing federal court officers as "a bunch of ignoramus, bigoted Catholic beasts that carry the sword of the church."

Naomi Isaacson was a lawyer and CEO of the Dr. R.C. Samanta Roy Institute of Science and Technology. The religious sect known as "SIST," based in Wescott, made news in 2008 for having allegedly compiled a list of 60 Shawano area residents that were "potential victims of an implied threat," according to Shawano police.

The institute, which also has been identified as The Disciples of the Lord Jesus, has operated since the 1970s in the Shawano area, where it owned motels, gas stations and a go-cart track. The FBI in 2009 investigated the "implied threat" list, but no charges were brought.

Isaacson had her law license suspended this week for conduct that "displayed an utter disregard and disrespect for the integrity of the courts and their judges in a brazen and outrageous fashion," according to the Wisconsin Supreme Court's Office of Lawyer Regulation.

[The archbishop of the Chilean region of Puerto Montt, Archbishop Cristian Caro, denounced the hidden political motives behind the attacks on the inauguration of the new bishop of Osorno who was accused of covering up abuse Fernando Karadima.]

Married Jehovah's Witness, 36, who had sex with boy, 15, after inviting him to sleepovers with her children avoids jail sentence

WALES
Daily Mail

By Ben Wilkinson for the Daily Mail and Jennifer Smith for MailOnline

A Jehova's witness who had sex with a schoolboy was caught out when the child’s suspicious mother hid a tape recorder in his bedroom.

Mother-of-two Kelly Richards admitted having sex with the 15-year-old during a three-month affair but was spared prison by a judge yesterday.

The 36-year-old met the boy after he befriended one of her sons at church and she invited the teenager to her home for sleepovers with her children.

During their encounters, Richards had told the boy: ‘Don’t tell anyone because I might get done for this.’

But their relationship was uncovered after the teenager’s mother placed a tape recorder in her son’s bedroom to discover why he had started hiding his mobile phone and why he was spending so much time with the Richards family.

After the tape recordings revealed explicit phone conversations between Richards and the boy, his mother called in police.

A rally in support of Fr Ciaran Dallat, who allegedly broke his vow of celibacy to have a two-year affair with a woman, has been organised by his parishioners

The rally will be held outside St Peter's Cathedral in west Belfast at 7pm today "to show support for Fr Ciaran from the young and old of the parish to let him know that he is sadly missed".

More than 1,000 people have signed an online petition for Fr Dallat to return to St Peter's where he is still officially an assistant priest. Parishioners have not seen him since allegations about his relationship with a 49-year-old north Belfast woman emerged last week. However, they have said that despite the controversy they want him back.

One woman leaving Mass yesterday morning said: "All the parishioners love Fr Dallat. He is a lovely man. He would have tea for us all every Wednesday. He gave so much of his time to the parish it would be a very real loss if he did not return. I've no interest in what is being said about him."

Catholic Bishop Noel Treanor has come under pressure from clergy members over his handling of an alleged sexual relationship between a priest and a parishioner.

West Belfast priest Fr Ciaran Dallat is believed to have left his parochial house to stay with a friend along the north coast as the storm over his alleged affair with a woman, who became pregnant and then miscarried his child, failed to dissipate.

While parishioners have organised a rally of support for Fr Dallat to take place tonight outside St Peter's Cathedral, where he is still officially an assistant priest, several members of the clergy have said they believe he should not be allowed to return to ministry.

They have also criticised Bishop Treanor for not advising Fr Dallat to stand aside pending an investigation when he first became aware of the claims more than a fortnight ago.

Although the latest op-ed on COLlive.com about Agunahs was so atrocious that it was actually... well, funny, I still can't shake this feeling of total disillusionment.

Today, I sat reading this sorry excuse for an op-ed by Aliza, and I felt my body respond in such a visceral way that I surprised myself. Even though I have moved on wholly and completely from my experience as a chained woman, my first instinct was to feel attacked, ridiculed, shamed.

I got married to my first husband almost 9 years ago to the day. The mistreatment started at my wedding and for the next 7 months my life was a living hell. I knew from the first day of my new life with him that my marriage was over, and yet I stayed until I couldn't take it any longer. I still remember how I felt when I called my mother to tell her I was leaving him, and the look in his eyes when I actually left. I thought that would be the hardest moment... but I was wrong.

The next 11 months shocked my system: from my friends who couldn't understand what went wrong... my rabbi telling me to go home and make a nice dinner and get pregnant instead... and then telling me that it was "normal and reasonable" for a man to delay in giving his wife a gett... to the bais din system failing me day in and day out. I know that I am lucky that my prison sentence only lasted about a year (and a few thousand dollars); many women are chained for quite a lot longer than that. But to all the naysayers out there, including the author of the latest article, let me explain to you how it feels to be chained to a marriage you want no part of:

A criminal trial will proceed against four rabbis after a federal judge in Trenton rejected their claims that charging them with kidnapping and beating Orthodox Jewish men who refused to grant their wives divorces represents a substantial imposition by government on their religious practice.

The defendants claimed their prosecution was barred by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson of the District of New Jersey said the government’s application of kidnapping laws to the four defendants does not substantially burden their religious exercise. The rabbis’ motion to dismiss the indictment failed because other, nonviolent means are available to convince a husband to grant his wife a religious divorce, Wolfson ruled.

The rabbis are also barred from raising their religious beliefs as a defense to the charges of kidnapping, attempted kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping, Wolfson said.

The ruling was issued as defendants Mendel Epstein, Jay Goldstein, David Aryeh Epstein and Binyamin Stimler were about two weeks into a trial on charges that they engaged in criminal means to facilitate Orthodox Jewish divorces, according to court documents. The charges stem from a sting operation in which the defendants agreed to accept $60,000 from an FBI agent posing as an Orthodox Jewish woman whose husband refused to grant her a divorce, as well as three actual kidnappings in which the defendants allegedly tied up and beat husbands who refused to grant their wives divorces, court documents said.

Prosecutor: Bergen County Pastor Engaged in Inappropriate Sexual Activity with Members of Church Youth Group

By Natalie Mieles (Patch Staff)

Authorites say a former Wyckoff Pastor was arrested for allegedly engaging in inappropriate sexual activity and exchanging sexually explicit videos with underage members of his church youth group.

David M. Hayman, 37, of Oradell, was arrested Thursday after police learned he engaged in inappropriate sexual activity and exchanged sexually explicit videos on numerous occasions with two female acquaintances who were both 16-years-old when the activity began, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said.

Authorities also learned that Hayman exchanged sexually explicit text messages on numerous occasions with three other female acquaintances, who were 15-and-16-years-old.

“All of the victims were members of a church youth group, of which Hayman was the Pastor and for whom he had direct supervisory responsibility,” Molinelli said.

Jonathan Bailey, the former youth minister fired last month from First Baptist New Orleans church, has been arrested a third time after the Orleans Parish grand jury handed up a massive 13-count indictment alleging a pattern of predatory sexual conduct with an underage congregant.

The alleged victim in the indictment is the same 14-year-old girl questioned by New Orleans police six weeks ago, after authorities said video surveillance cameras captured her and Bailey slipping into a darkened closet together during a Feb. 8 function at the large Lakeview church. Bailey was arrested Feb. 23, accused of indecent behavior with a juvenile, then was re-arrested March 4 and booked with sexual battery, after investigators said the girl told of more serious sexual conduct with the married church staffer in a second interview with police.

Bailey twice posted bonds of $35,000 to be free after those arrests. But he was booked into Orleans Parish Prison again Monday (March 23) with a new bond of $6.5 million set by the grand jury bill -- $500,000 on each of the 13 counts.

Bailey's attorney, Townsend Myers, said Monday night he was aware of the new charges but declined comment on the case or his client.

(CNN) — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is the largest sponsor of Boy Scout troops in the United States, says the church has strong measures in place to prevent the sexual abuse of scouts, as claims have been made it hasn't done enough.

In the first interview about allegations of abuse in Mormon church-sponsored scouting troops, Church Elder L. Whitney Clayton told CNN that the church is at the forefront for prevention of child abuse.

"We feel like there is really no other organization that we know of — a church or something like a church — that does as much as we do," Clayton said. "We have a zero tolerance policy or position with respect to child abuse, and we train our people, we teach our people, we work with leaders, we provide materials online and in hard copy."

Over several months, CNN examined allegations of abuse that were detailed in at least five lawsuits filed against the church and the scouts.

SYDNEY | Opposition from the Weatherill Government appears to have helped damage hopes for a $4.3 billion national fund to compensate victims of child sexual abuse.

A Commonwealth submission to the Child Sexual Abuse Royal Commission says establishing a single national redress scheme would be extremely complex and require significant time and resources.

“This is likely to be frustrating to survivors of child sexual abuse and undermine confidence in the outcomes of the Royal Commission’s work,” it said in the submission published today ahead of a public hearing in Sydney on Wednesday.

The commonwealth submission is one of 44 received by the commission in response to a consultation paper on redress published by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse last January.

Generous financial payments, ongoing care and support and a meaningful apology should be key elements of a national child sexual abuse redress scheme according to the Catholic Church submission to the Royal Commission.

The Truth Justice and Healing Council’s submission to the Royal Commission’s redress and civil litigation consultation has supported Commissioner Peter McClellan’s call for Governments to establish an independent national redress scheme funded by the institutions responsible for the abuse.

Francis Sullivan, CEO of the Truth Justice and Healing Council, said the issue of redress is at the very heart of the Commission’s work.

“A national scheme is necessary to ensure survivors of child sexual abuse are treated consistently across Australia. It would effectively provide consistent, easy access redress for all survivors of child sexual abuse regardless of where or when the abuse occurred,” he said.

Hopes for a $4.3 billion national fund to compensate victims of child sexual abuse have been knocked on the head by the federal government.

A submission to the child sexual abuse royal commission Canberra says establishing a single national redress scheme would be extremely complex and require significant time and resources.

'This is likely to be frustrating to survivors of child sexual abuse and undermine confidence in the outcomes of the Royal commission's work,' it said in the submission published on Tuesday ahead of a public hearing in Sydney on Wednesday.

The commonwealth submission is one of 44 received by the commission in response to a consultation paper on redress published by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse last January.

The consultation paper outlined scenarios for a national compensation scheme where tens of thousands of child abuse survivors would receive payments between $10,000 and $200,000.

Deacon Martinez says he felt obligated to write the letter because he was personally contacted by someone with direct knowledge of the case.

Guam - The priest who was arrested last week on allegations that he took a minor without permission is now being accused of sexual relations with the 17-year-old girl. Although widely speculated, the allegations were made public in a letter written to Child Protective Services and the Archbishop.

Deacon Steve Martinez sent the letter to Archbishop Anthony Apuron and to Child Protective Services. In it, he says Father Luis Camacho “illegally transported a 17-year-old minor child from Southern High School without her parents’ permission … had the minor child hide as they drove away from the school … drove the minor child to Subway and then to a remote beach in Agat and had sexual contact with her.”

Deacon Martinez tells PNC that he felt obligated to write the letter because he was personally contacted by someone with direct knowledge to the case.

Father Camacho, the pastor of the San Dimas and San Dionisio parishes was eventually arrested and charged with custodial interference but he was booked and released. He then resigned as pastor of the parishes.

Tim Rohr is a local blogger on Catholic activities on Guam and offers some insight on the situation.

"If he was just a regular priest and not a pastor, it's certainly grounds for discipline and probably a retreat for a couple of years to some place to think through and do penance or something like that.

But the fact that he’s a pastor puts him in a position of authority over people and so that’s the same if you’re a teacher or a school principal and you’ve got somebody, doesn’t matter how old they are, but you have authority over them, that becomes a whole different level of abuse," notes Rohr.

NORWICH, Conn. (WTNH) — The Catholic Diocese of Norwich will pay $1.1 million dollars as part of a settlement released today in a priest molestation case.

The lawsuit stems from an unidentified Massachusetts woman’s claim that Father Thomas Shea molested her about 60 times between the ages of 3 and 16-years-old. The settlement comes one day before the jury trial was to start on Tuesday and following three day mediation sessions.

In the claim, Jane Doe #2 says Father Shea french kissed her, fondled her and touched her inappropriately. At least 15 young girls had been molested by Shea in the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s. Six other victims were prepared to testify that they had been molested by Shea and had complained to church officials but nothing was done about it. The Diocese paid $1.1 million to another victim, known as Jane Doe #1, in 2013. That settlement was also reached just as that trial was to begin in the same courtroom in Hartford Superior Court where Jane Doe #2 was to be tried this week.

Attorneys Kelly E. Reardon and Robert I. Reardon, Jr. of The Reardon Law Firm of New London successfully represented both Jane Doe #1 and Jane Doe #2, as well as representing several other childhood molestation victims of priests in lawsuits settled with the Diocese of Norwich and Hartford.

A disgraced former Catholic priest has received an 18-month suspended prison sentence for what a judge described as "a significant and grievous breach of trust'' for sexually assaulting a seven-year-old boy in his care.

Daniel Curran (64), of Bryansford Avenue, Newcastle, appeared at Downpatrick Crown Court for sentencing after he admitted one count of gross indecency and a single charge of indecent assault on the child.

The offences took place between August 1990 and August 1993 at a family cottage in Tyrella, Co Down, when the victim was aged between seven and 10. Curran took altar boys, including the victim, to the cottage.

Passing sentence, Judge Piers Grant told Curran that he had pleaded guilty to "serious offences'' by "deliberately targeting groups of individuals'' to ply them with alcohol so he could abuse them in the cottage.

More information has been discovered regarding allegations against Father Luis Camacho have surfaced, as a report alleging the priest had sexual contact with a minor was filed with the Archdiocese of Agana and Child Protective Services.

News that a priest may have had sexual relations with a teenage girl has members of Guam's Catholic community in shock and asking for prayer. It was last week KUAM News first brought you the story about the arrest of Father Luis Camacho, who was the pastor for the San Dimas and San Dionisio Churches. The priest was arrested on allegations of custodial interference. Police found Fr. Luis and a 17-year-old girl in a parked car at Agat Beach. The girl was supposed to be in school.

It wasn't until a report was filed with Child Protective Services and Archbishop Anthony Apuron that it became apparent there was more to the story. The person that filed the report was Deacon Stephen Martinez, who said he was obligated to filed the report by the archdiocese's policy on sexual misconduct and Guam law. Deacon Martinez said he was provided information about the incident by someone familiar with what happened. "So because I believed that what they had to say was likely correct information, I had to report it, and then it is up to the investigator to go through the process and determine what the true facts are on the situation," he explained.

Deacon Martinez alleges in his report that Fr. Luis illegally transported the 17-year-old girl from her school without her parent's permission. He went on to state that Fr. Luis had the minor hide as they drove away from the school. "He then drove minor child to subway and then to a remote beach in Agat and had sexual contact with her".

March 23, 2015

ONE of Sydney’s most illustrious private schools has been forced to send a letter to parents informing them a child sex abuse allegation has been made by a former student.

Paul Hine, principal of Saint Ignatius’ College, Riverview delivered the letter to students yesterday, stating he had been made aware of the allegation from 30 years ago by the Professional Standards of the Australian Province of the Society of Jesus. He said the allegation had been reported to the police and the school was assisting with the investigation.

“A former student of Saint Ignatius’ College, Riverview has made allegations concerning child sexual abuse over 30 years ago,” the letter from Mr Hine said. “There are clear limits on what I am able to reveal about the allegations.

“Despite this, I believe it is important to inform you about the situation as I understand it and to offer reassurance that such matters are the object of direct and sustained vigilance at the school.”

An investigation has been launched into allegations of child sexual abuse at one of Sydney's most prestigious private schools dating back more than 30 years.

St Ignatius' College, Riverview on Monday sent a letter to its old boys informing them that a former student had made allegations which principal Paul Hine said had now been reported to the NSW police force.

The only detail of the allegation contained in the letter is that it concerned "child sexual abuse over 30 years ago".

Dr Hine said it was with "some sadness" that he wrote to the school community about the allegation which had been passed on to him from the professional standards office of the Australian Province of the Society of Jesus.

"There are clear limits on what I am able to reveal about the allegations," Dr Hine wrote. "Despite this, I believe it important to inform you about the situation as I understand it and to offer reassurance that such matters are the object of direct and sustained vigilance at the school."

Investigation launched into child sex abuse allegations at ANOTHER one of Australia’s most prestigious private schools

By Belinda Grant Geary For Daily Mail Australia

Allegations of child sexual abuse have arisen at another one of Australia's most prestigious private schools, prompting a new investigation.

St Ignatius College Riverview issued letters to its alumni informing them a claim relating to child sexual abuse had been made and informing them the information had been passed on to NSW police for investigation, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The letter, penned by Principal Paul Hine, gave no details of the allegations except that it concerned child sexual abuse and that it happened more than 30 years ago.

The allegation was passed to Dr Hine by the professional standards office of the Australian Province of the Society of Jesus.

Michelle O’Brien, the director of professional standards for the Jesuits, told The Australian her office had been aware of the claims for more than a year and that they had been passed on to police last May.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A lawsuit alleges that Roman Catholic church officials in Los Angeles placed a priest who was a known child molester back into ministry in Santa Paula, where he abused two more young boys.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, details allegations that date back to the late 1980s and early 1990s, after the Rev. Carlos Rene Rodriguez had already been sent to out-of-state treatment for molesting a 16-year-old boy, church files state.

Rodriguez was convicted of molesting two other boys in 2004, years after the fact and was placed on the state's sex offender registry upon his release.

He was defrocked in 1998 at his own request and now lives in Huntington Park.

A former employee of both the Diocese of Winona and Diocese of La Crosse is accused of stealing $116,000 from the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas while an employee there.

The Wyandotte County, Kansas, prosecutor's office announced that 52-year-old Rose A. Hammes, of Kansas City, Kansas, has been charged with three counts of felony theft. She is jailed in Wyandotte County in lieu of $50,000 bond.

According to a statement from the archdiocese, the Wyandotte County district attorney’s office was notified last year after the archdiocese discovered "financial irregularities in April 2014. The archdiocese contacted law enforcement because it believed it was the victim of fraud and had suffered a sizable loss, in excess of $100,000."

“The archdiocese remains in full cooperation with law enforcement authorities as this case moves forward,” said Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann, who invited "the prayers of Catholics of the archdiocese for the parties involved in the case."

The archdiocese said it hopes to recover the loss through insurance. Additional details about the charges weren't immediately available.

NORWICH, Conn. — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Norwich has agreed to pay $1.1 million to settle a lawsuit alleging a woman was repeatedly molested by a now-deceased priest.

A trial had been scheduled to begin Tuesday in Hartford Superior Court in the case brought by the unidentified Massachusetts woman.

Attorneys for the plaintiff, the diocese and its insurer reached the settlement agreement following several days of mediation.

The woman alleged that the late Rev. Thomas Shea molested her dozens of times from when she was 3 years old into her teen years.

The lawsuit also named former Bishop Daniel Reilly, who was in charge of the Norwich Diocese during the time when Shea was moved from parish to parish as complaints mounted against him. Bishop Reilly was later bishop of the Worcester Catholic Diocese, from 1994 to 2004.

Pope Francis’ and the discredited ex-pope have permanently failed with their over hyped and false slogan of “zero tolerance on sexual abuse”. Increasingly, outraged Catholic parents and grandparents are not buying the “papal bull” anymore. They are instead closely watching Francis’ hypocritical actions now, not his empty promises. Catholics are even shouting down their bishops in church, with some violence, as early Christians also sometimes did to bad bishops. Political leaders are also watching this closely, as the Francis’ “Hollywood like facade” fades fast.

Click here to see a BBC video of what is fairly described as a “near riot” — the unprecedented Chileans’ angry protest recently against Pope Francis’ choice of Bishop Barros, alleged to have silently witnessed sexual abuse by his mentor, famous Chilean priest, Fernando Karadima. Francis named Barros to head a small diocese that is close to Argentina and to an active volcano. Francis misjudged. The sex abuse volcano has erupted. See the extraordinary pictures here, Pubimetro , and also the shocking second video of everyday Catholics protesting here, YouTube .

Bishop Barros is apparently part of a broader priest sexual abuse culture, that may have even included, according to reported allegations, a former Chilean Jesuit superior. Francis likely knew and knows some of the key culprits, since Argentina’s and Chile’s Catholic and Jesuit organizations are tied closely. For the broader Chilean abuse situation and Francis’ Chilean connections, please see Jason Berry’s comprehensive description, “Chilean cardinals close to pope stained by abuse cover-ups“, here,

“I hold the Pope responsible,” said Juan Carlos Cruz, a 51-year-old journalist who is one of the accusers of Barros.

“This contradicts everything the Pope has said. He was aware of the situation but named [Barros as bishop] anyway,” Cruz told reporters. “We were accustomed to getting slapped in the face by the Catholic Church [in Chile], but getting slapped by the Pope himself is the saddest part. …”, Cruz reportedly added. (my emphasis)

TRENTON — The attorney for a Pennsylvania woman who wanted a religious divorce said Monday that a Lakewood rabbi instructed her family to pay the rabbi $60,000 as part of his attempt to secure her divorce.

Fredric Goldfein told jurors in the federal conspiracy and kidnapping trial of Rabbi Mendel Epstein that in his efforts to get a Maryland man to agree to a divorce, Epstein instructed him to wire $60,000 to two of the congregations he led.

A few days after the money was transferred to Epstein's congregations, the husband, Aharon Friedman, was attacked on July 29, 2012, by three men at the home of his former in-laws in Pennsylvania in an attempt to force him to issue the divorce.

Goldfein, testifying for the federal government in exchange for immunity, said he was surprised when he heard about the attack on Friedman and called another rabbi to try to learn more details.

Goldfein, who is a rabbi, said he was led to believe the money was to go to the husband, Friedman, as part of his agreement to grant his wife a religious divorce so that she would eventually be permitted to remarry in the Orthodox Jewish community.

The Catholic Diocese of Norwich has agreed to pay $1.1 million to settle a Massachusetts woman’s claim that the late Rev. Thomas W. Shea molested her about 60 times, beginning when she was preschool age and continuing into her college years.

The case of Jane Doe #2 was to start trial Tuesday in Hartford Superior Court, but attorneys for the plaintiff, the Catholic Diocese and its insurer reached an agreement following three days of mediation conducted by Judge William H. Bright.

The 50-year-old woman claimed Shea, the subject of at least 15 molestation claims, French-kissed her, fondled her and touched her inappropriately between the ages of three and 16. She had met Shea when she was a small child attending St. Joseph’s Parish in Webster, Mass. and said he continued to molest and stalk her when she attended Marianapolis Prep School in Thompson and Albertus Magnus College in New Haven.

New London attorney Kelly E. Reardon and her father, Robert I. Reardon Jr., had represented the woman, who Kelly Reardon said suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, anxiety and depression since childhood.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Norwich has agreed to pay $1.1 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Massachusetts woman who claimed she was molested dozens of times as a child by a diocese priest.

The settlement was reached Monday, the day before a trial was scheduled to start in Hartford Superior Court.

It followed a three-day mediation session from March 18 to March 20 conducted by Superior Court Judge William Bright.

The woman, known as Jane Doe #2, claimed she was molested about 60 times from age 3 to 16 by Thomas Shea, a parish priest, according to a news release from New London attorneys Kelly Reardon and Robert Reardon, who represent her.

NORWICH, Conn. (AP) — A Roman Catholic diocese in Connecticut has agreed to pay $1.1 million to settle a lawsuit alleging a woman was repeatedly molested by a now-deceased priest beginning when she was 3 years old.

A trial had been scheduled to begin Tuesday in the case brought by the unidentified Massachusetts woman.

Attorneys for the woman, the Diocese of Norwich, Connecticut, and its insurer reached the settlement agreement following several days of mediation.

A lawsuit has been filed against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and a former priest who allegedly molested two altar boys who were parishioners at a Santa Paula Catholic church.

The suit, filed Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court by two men now in their 30s, alleges former priest Carlos Rene Rodriguez sexually molested them between 1989 and 1991 when they were altar boys at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Santa Paula.

The two were 7 to 10 years old at the time, said their attorney, Anthony DeMarco. They now live in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, he said.

DeMarco said this suit is one of several filed against Rodriguez. DeMarco alleged the Los Angeles Archdiocese knew of Rodriguez’s history of molesting other children since the 1980s while he worked at a church in Arizona.

The younger of two brothers convicted of sexually exploiting girls in the youth group of a Texas Baptist church has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Jordan “Jordy” Earls, 26, received a sentence of 180 months in prison, the statutory minimum, in exchange for pleading guilty to a single count of producing child pornography. Prosecutors said they were prepared to add at least 10 counts if Earls rejected the plea bargain and the case had gone to trial.

Previously Earls’ older brother, Joshua Earls, 31, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after also pleading guilty to child pornography. Authorities say together the brothers, sons of a Baptist minister, used Joshua Earls’ position as youth minister at Arapaho Road Baptist Church in Garland, Texas, to entice minor girls to take pornographic pictures of themselves and share them with the brothers over the Internet.

One victim filed a civil lawsuit in February, alleging that leaders of the congregation either knew or should have known that the men posed a danger to the church’s youth.

At his sentencing hearing Feb. 18, Jordy Earls said he is sorry for his crimes and hopes the people he harmed would forgive him.

A Massachusetts woman who claims she was sexually abused by a priest in Norwich has settled her lawsuit against the Diocese of Norwich for $1.1 million.

A woman known only as Jane Doe No. 2 in court records claims she was molested about 60 times from ages 3 to 16 by the Rev. Thomas Shea, a parish priest in the diocese. Years later, she sued the diocese and its former bishop Daniel Reilly.

At least 15 young girls claim to have been molested by Shea in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, according to Doe's lawyers, Kelly and Robert Reardon, of The Reardon Law Firm in New London. Six other victims were prepared to testify that they had been molested by Shea and had complained to church officials but nothing was done about it.

The Norwich Diocese paid $1.1 million to another victim, known as Jane Doe No. 1, in 2013. The Reardon lawyers represented that woman as well.

In the latest case, the two sides went to mediation last week for three days before Superior Court Judge William Bright. A trial was set to begin Tuesday, March 24, had the settlement not been reached.

On the eve of a civil trial, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Norwich has agreed to pay a woman $1.1 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged she was sexually assaulted more than 60 times by the late Rev. Thomas Shea.

The 49-year-old woman, identified as Jane Doe No. 2, was prepared to testify that Shea, who was a friend of her family, started molesting her when she was 3 years old and that the assaults continued into her adult life.

Shea died in 2006. It is the second time in the last two years the Diocese has settled a lawsuit just as evidence was about to begin. In 2013, it settled a lawsuit by an unidentified woman for the same amount before a trial was to start in Hartford Superior Court.

New London attorney Kelly Reardon, whose firm represented both women, said the settlement was reached after three days of mediation. The settlement spares her client the stress of having to testify in open court about Shea, she said.

"She was prepared to testify but would have been very hard for her to relive it all again," Reardon said. ""My client has suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression since childhood. She has been living her nightmare for over 40 years."

HARTFORD – Lawyers for a Massachusetts woman announced that the Catholic Diocese of Norwich and Bishop Daniel Reilly have settled a lawsuit brought as a result of sexual abuse by a priest for $1.1 million.

Attorneys Kelly Reardon and Robert Reardon Jr. said the settlement came a day before the case was set to go to trial in Hartford Superior Court.

“Jane Doe #2,” as she was identified in court documents, was molested about 60 times from age three to sixteen by Father Thomas Shea according to the law firm. Shea was a parish priest in the diocese and was accused by at least fifteen girls of molestation from the 1960s to the 1980s, said the lawyers in a statement. “Jane Doe #2″ said Shea French kissing her, fondling her and touching her inappropriately. The woman suffered post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression according to her law firm. The firm also said the victim and her family complained to church officials who did not take action.

Lawyers on both sides mediated the settlement for three days, starting last Wednesday. The diocese and Bishop Daniel Reilly were represented by Attorney Gary Kaisen of Milano and Wanat in Branford and Attorney Wesley Horton of the Hartford firm of Horton, Knox and Shields.

A former Catholic priest has received an 18-month suspended sentence for a what a judge said was “a significant and grievous breach of trust” for sexually assaulting a seven-year-old boy.

Daniel Curran (64), of Bryansford Avenue, Newcastle, Co Down, was at Downpatrick Crown Court for sentencing after pleading guilty to one count of gross indecency towards a boy and also admitted a single charge of indecent assault on him.

The offences took place between August 1990 and August 1993 at a cottage owned by his family in Co Down when the victim was between seven and 10.

Passing sentence on Monday, Judge Piers Grant told Curran he had pleaded guilty to “serious offences” by “deliberately targeting groups of individuals” to ply them with alcohol so he could abuse them in the family cottage.

ELKHART, Ind. — For 40 years, women who had been sexually violated by John Howard Yoder were left suffering in silence while the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary professor became one of the most influential theological voices of the 20th century. On March 22, AMBS publicly apologized for long ignoring their cries for justice.

In a “Service of Lament, Confession and Commitment” in the seminary chapel, seminary president Sara Wenger Shenk solemnly told victims and nearly 200 other people: “I am sorry that we neglected to genuinely listen to your reports of violation and that even after hearing your warnings, we failed to raise the alarm.

“I am sorry that by choosing to remain silent about your violation, we isolated you, only deepening your sense of betrayal. I am sorry that in our exhaustion and desire for closure, we didn’t listen to those of you who said this is not finished, the full truth of what happened has not yet been named.”

The service was a milestone in the decades-long epic. Starting at least in the 1970s, Yoder sexually harassed and assaulted perhaps more than 100 women worldwide, according to historian Rachel Waltner Goossen, who earlier this year published a major article on Yoder’s abuses and the church’s response.

Many of my readers are unable to make sense of the situation in Chile, a situation where Pope Francis made the inexplicable decision to appoint as bishop a man who was the protege and confidant (and, according to some, the gay lover) of a known and canonically punished priest who spent five decades abusing altar boys. This appointment by Francis, of Bishop Juan Barros, was greeted with strong opposition by Catholics in Chile, about a thousand of whom rioted at the cathedral in Osorno in an unsuccessful attempt to stop Barros' installation ceremony. The charge is that Barros would participate in the sexual abuse of altar boys by being physically present and watching it happen. He denies this charge, and we don't know if it's true, but we do know that the pope has picked a man from inside the inner circle of an appallingly corrupt cult-leader, the right hand man of a priest that the Vatican itself has sanctioned. Nobody knows quite what to make of this politically insane and insensitive appointment, although a popular Catholic blogger who's very pro-Francis has solved the problem by saying (in effect), "Don't know a thing about this situation, so I simply can't judge!!! Go Francis!" A less than honest solution, I'm afraid.

Meanwhile, I offended some Catholic friends of mine by making a joke about a woman who had posted a rather revealing photo of herself on Facebook (not the one above). I shared the picture privately and made fun of it - but also enjoyed sharing it because the gal is a knockout. I was told by my offended friends that I was (in effect) a judgmental jerk who was behaving in a less-than-saintly manner by finding humor in an attractive woman showing off her body in a somewhat inappropriate way. I was being very unholy here. The Catholic Faith had apparently worked on my friends and failed to work on me, it seems. As with the picture above, I was in need of a spiritual Photoshop to blur over my sinful tendencies.

And elsewhere (but on this same topic - a topic that includes both riots in the cathedral and cleavage), Rod Dreher quotes a filmmaker on the difference between legitimate Faith Films and Cheesy and Contrived Faith Films (my emphasis) ...

One of the featured events at Sundance this year was a panel on faith-based films. Several attendees I spoke with were disappointed that panelists focused predominately, once again, on the “faith and family” audience—the same underlying market confusion I’d observed all year. One attendee, Ryan Daniel Dobson, is a Christian filmmaker developing a project based on the Biblical story of Hosea, in which the prophet is told by God to marry a prostitute, who repeatedly abandons him. A project like this will likely interest many people of faith, but not those looking for a “family film.” Like a growing number of Christians who work outside both the Hollywood system and the Christian film industry, Dobson sees films like God’s Not Dead as nearly antithetical to his understanding of what film ought to do and what faith ought to look like.

“Several times ‘faith films’ were compared to superhero movies, where a studio can’t stray from what their fanboy audience wants, because it would guarantee a box office fail.” Dobson told me.

Members of an abuse survivors' group are outraged that the synod still has not removed the archbishop from the ranks of clergy. He was the OCA’s highest ranking clergyman in Canada, but was convicted of sexually assaulting an 11 year old altar boy in January of 2014 and is currently in jail.

The OCA’s synod instead “reviewed” the report of the Synodal Commission, as well as procedures and a date for the spiritual court. They also appointed a committee of three bishops to “develop appropriate procedures.”

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, say that the denomination has publicly acknowledged that their sex abuse policy requires that clergy who have been convicted of child sexual abuse be laicized.

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is relieved that the founder and former head of Saint Innocent’s Academy (SIA) in Kodiak has been removed from a position of authority. However, they agree with the publishers of Academy Abuse that more remains to be done.

DeLucia was accused by at least 18 former students of physical, emotional and spiritual abuse. The spiritual court concluded that he publicly shamed kids, used vulgar language, engaged in unbecoming behavior while serving the sacraments, including interrupting liturgy to discipline attendees, violated confessions, and used “improper pastoral approaches toward the faithful.”

“First is must be said that this decision would not have been possible without the bravery and persistence of all the former students who testified at the spiritual court,” said David Clohessy, the Executive Director of SNAP. “We congratulate them on their victory and applaud their courage.”

Cappy Larson of SNAP added, “However, the diocese also needs to step up and explain what they will do in the future to prevent further abuses. As a mother it’s very disturbing to me that Saint Innocent’s was billing itself as a treatment center for troubled youth without any oversight from the Church or from the state. Kids with problems deserve a qualified and credentialed staff.”

“And are the BOD and Christ the Saviour Brotherhood (CSB) going to take responsibility for what happened to the students who attended the academy?” wondered Melanie Jula Sakoda, also of SNAP. “Father Paisius’ victims may need counseling and therapy as they try to heal.”

At their recent meeting in Syosset, New York, the bishops of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) delayed a final decision on the election of Archimandrite Gerasim Eliel as the new bishop for the Diocese of the South (DOS).

However, members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are disappointed that the synod did not act on their earlier recommendation to carefully consider this nominee and hold out for another candidate.

Eliel had been the overwhelming favorite to fill the long-vacant see at a recent special assembly of the DOS. However, the OCA’s synod withheld their approval of this selection last week. Instead, they appointed the archimandrite as the administrator of the DOS. The bishops will review this decision at their fall meeting.

“I can certainly see why the synod would want to give Archimandrite Gerasim a ‘test run,’” said Melanie Jula Sakoda of SNAP, “The last candidate selected for the Diocese of the South, who went on to head the whole OCA 11 days after his consecration, was a complete administrative disaster, particularly in the way he handled sex abuse cases. However, if the OCA is serious about changing the way abuse is handled in their Church, the archimandrite seems like precisely the wrong kind of candidate.”

“The OCA is still reeling from the conviction of Archbishop Seraphim Storheim for the sexual abuse of a child. I can’t believe the synod would seriously consider a man who spent so much time in the company of two notorious sexual predators, and has yet to say a public word against either. Is it really sensible to continue to entertain promoting a man who thinks it’s more important to conceal predators then to protect the vulnerable and help heal the wounded?”

[The spokesman for the organization of lay men and women of Osorno, Juan Carlos Claret, said in an interview with Cooperativa that the movement will continue with the demonstrations against Bishop Juan Barros. He said violence on Saturday was because of lack of dialogue with church officials over the appointment of the new bishop.]

Father Luis Camacho allegedly had the 17-year-old girl hide in his car as he drove her away from school.

Guam - The priest who was arrested last week on allegations of custodial interference over a 17-year-old student is now being accused of having "sexual contact" with her.

Deacon Stephen Martinez, whose position with the Archdiocese is under threat over his involvement with the Concerned Catholics of Guam, has written a letter to Archbishop Anthony Apuron and to Child Protective Services to "formally file a report" that sexual abuse has occurred with a clergy member.

Specifically, Deacon Martinez writes that Father Luis Camacho, the former pastor of the San Dimas and San Dionisio parishes, picked up a female student from her school without permission and drove her to a remote beach in Agat. Martinez says Father Luis Camacho even had the girl hide in his car as they drove away from school. Martinez says Father Camacho then "had sexual contact with her."

Martinez goes on to cite the Archdiocese's policy on sexual misconduct dating back to April 2002.

The Archdiocese's Sexual Abuse Response Coordinator Deacon Larry Claros, one day after Father Camacho was arrested, declined to comment on the matter when questioned by PNC. However, the Archdiocese did release a media statement confirming that Father Camacho was arrested on a charge of custodial interference and that he had resigned from his position as a result. Details of his arrest were not provided.

A disgraced former Catholic priest received an 18 month suspended prison sentence for what a judge described as "a significant and grievous breach of trust'' for sexually assaulting a seven-year-old boy in his care.

Daniel Curran, 64 and of Bryansford Avenue, Newcastle, appeared in the dock of the Downpatrick Crown Court on Monday for sentencing after he pleaded guilty to one count of gross indecency towards a male child and also admitted a single charge of indecent assault on the same victim.

The offences took place between August 1990 and August 1993 at a cottage owned by his family in Co Down when the victim was aged between seven and 10.

Passing sentence, Judge Piers Grant told Curran that he had pleaded guilty to "serious offences'' by "deliberately targeting groups of individuals'' to ply them with alcohol so he could abuse them in the family cottage.

Prosecution QC David McDowell told the court that the victim was a pupil of a primary school in north Belfast and at the age of seven, Curran came to the school in his role as a priest and asked him if he wanted to serve as an altar boy.

One of Sydney’s most prestigious private schools, whose alumni ­include Tony Abbott, has announced a former pupil may have been sexually abused as a child,­ ­almost a year after reporting the matter to police.

The revelation follows evidence to a royal commission earlier this month that pupils were sexually abused by teachers at Sydney’s Knox Grammar School, and that senior staff may have failed to disclose this to police.

Paul Hine, the principal of the Jesuit-run St Ignatius’ College, Riverview on Sydney’s lower north shore, yesterday wrote to alumni saying a “former student ... has made allegations concerning child sexual abuse over 30 years ago”.

“I am also communicating with all the boys today, in an age-­appropriate manner so that they do not hear about this matter in a piecemeal way, or in a situation where they have no reassurances,” Mr Hine wrote.

Two new predator priest lawsuits filed
Perpetrator admitted abuse, sent to prison
But LA archbishop has never reached out to parishes
Another LA predator may still be working in Philippines
Silence is dangerous, victims tell archbishop

WHAT:
Holding signs and pictures of themselves at the age they were abused, sex abuse victims will:

- Disclose two new child sex abuse and cover up lawsuits against the LA Archdiocese and a now-convicted priest, and
- Blast the LA Archbishop for possibly letting another LA predator to work as a priest in the Philippines.

They will also beg the LA Archbishop to:
- Reach out to communities where convicted predator worked and may have abused, and
- Demand that Philippine bishops suspend an accused LA cleric who is working there.

WHEN:
Monday, March 23 at 11 am

WHERE
Outside of the LA Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 W Temple St (at Hill), Los Angeles

WHO:
5 to 6 men and women who were sexually abused as children, and their supporters, who are members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), the nation’s largest support group for people who have been sexually abused in religious or institutional settings

WHY:
On Friday, two victims of now-convicted LA predator priest Carlos Rodriguez filed a sex abuse and cover-up lawsuit against the priest and the Los Angeles Archdiocese. SNAP believes that there may be more victims and that Archbishop Jose Gomez is doing little to reach out to them.

The boys in the lawsuit charge that they were assaulted by Rodriguez while the priest was working at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Santa Paula between 1989 and 1991 when they were 7-10 years old.

According to the suit, Rodriguez was accused in 1987 of molesting a boy on a trip out of state. When allegations surfaced, Rodriguez told church officials—including then-Cardinal Roger Mahony—that he had molested the boy. Rodriguez was then sent to a church-run treatment facility.

When he came back to LA, Rodriguez was assigned by Mahony to the Office of Family Life in Ventura. While there, Rodriguez worked in parishes throughout Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. Rodriguez has at least six known victims.

"This is a tragic case," said Joelle Casteix, SNAP Western Regional Director. "There could be a dozen kids who were molested by this priest. Yet not once, as best we can tell, has Archbishop Gomez done anything to reach out and encourage victims to call law enforcement."

Rodriguez was removed from the priesthood in the late 1990s. He was convicted of felony child sexual abuse in 2002 and convicted to four years in prison.

In a similar situation, victims are also urging Gomez to prod Philippines church officials to investigate Rev. Ruben V. Abaya. SNAP believes this is the same Abaya who sexually molested a Los Angeles girl in 1980. Abaya was only in Los Angeles for 11 days when he and other priests allegedly gang raped Rita Milla at St. Philomena Parish in Carson.

"The least that Gomez can do is to warn communities that there may be a danger, but we haven't even seen him try that," Casteix said. "Even Pope Francis agrees that bishops should do everything they can to keep children safer from abuse."

In life, there are subjects that one may find difficult to discuss and then there are those topics that create such an emotional upheaval within the soul that few dare venture to acknowledge let alone give words to. Fortunately, a voice has been raised via Carol Kuhnert, author of "No Longer on Pedestals," a book that exposes the darkness that resided in the life of Carol's brother, Fr. Norman H. Christian.

The purpose of the writing is made quite clear within the journal's introduction: "My purpose in writing this book is to open the minds and hearts of those who find it difficult to believe clergy have been sexually abusing children for many decades and that the Catholic Church has made protecting the abusers and the church's assets its number-one priority, while leaving the victims, their families and church members to fend for themselves in trying to heal, understand and cope."

The backdrop is created as the reader is immersed in the daily activities and beliefs of the early years of the Henry and Verona Christian family of St. Louis, Missouri. One can relate to the memories that unfold upon the pages, particularly those readers of a Catholic upbringing. Amid the pleasantries of the past, particular characteristics begin to emerge in Carol's brother's personality, ones that will replay in future events. Fr. Norman Christian attended seminary and was ordained a priest on March 18, 1961. Carol writes of a common belief that was shared in that generation: "During my childhood, I held all clergy, priests and nuns as people with a very special calling from God. I was taught to trust them completely. They were right next to God in my eyes..."

As the years unfolded, it was revealed that Norman had harbored a dark thread of dishonesty and deceit that touched innocent lives; just as a pebble is thrown into a pond, one quickly views how the rings breaking the water expand outward, revealing how one introductory action multiplies and expands in time. And so it was with Fr. Christian.

Snowbirds land in South Florida hauling all sorts of baggage. For one former Connecticut resident, that includes six lawsuits stemming from allegations of Catholic church sex abuse. The most recent allegations hit just last week.

n the late 1970s and early 1980s, Father Walter Phillip Coleman was the priest at St. Patrick’s, a Catholic church in Bridgeport, Connecticut. During that time, an altar boy was working directly under Colemam when the priest, the lawsuit alleges, “sexually assaulted, sexually battered, and sexually exploited” him. The victim “suffered physical injuries resultant from the sexual abuse and assault and severe emotional injuries including emotional distress, anxiety, frustration, disassociation, posttraumatic stress, and permanent physiological scarring.”

Though Coleman has not faced related criminal charges, since the 1990s, five other people have come forward to file lawsuits in Connecticut. “Father Coleman was sexually exploiting, assaulting, and abusing minor children in his parish for years, with impunity,” Jason Tremont, the Bridgeport-based representing all six victims, said in a recent statement. “Parents and guardians entrusted their children to the care and protection of the church. Rather than protect them, Father Coleman violated them physically, morally, and spiritually.”

All the suits say that the Bridgeport diocese let the abuse happen under its watch and should have known Coleman was a predator. As early as 1976, higher-ups at the church had gotten complaints about Coleman’s behavior with the boys. The priest, the church, and the diocese have all been named as defendants in the lawsuits. In the previous five cases, the diocese settled with the victims.

The Church may be quite good at handing out punishments, but seems less good in letting some sinners know they are forgiven

The news that Cardinal O’Brien is now a cardinal in name only is not really news. Two years ago, he was not present at the conclave that elected Pope Francis. Given that the only real function that cardinals exercise of right is that of voting in a conclave, one can say that by staying away, Cardinal O’Brien effectively resigned his privileges then. What has happened now is that this resignation has been made official.

Given the cardinal’s age, and the fact that he would have lost his vote anyway at the age of 80, one assumes that this resignation means only one thing of importance: it creates a vacancy, which matters, as the number of Cardinals is fixed at 120, though, of course, popes sometimes break this rule.

Again, the news that Cardinal O’Brien has had a house bought for him to live in is not really news either. All retired clergy are given a place to live when they retire. When they die, or go into other accommodation, the house returns to the diocese which retained ownership all along.

A priest accused of defying his vow of celibacy to have an affair with a woman who became pregnant was forced to cancel a talk to parishioners about marriage just days before the scandal became public.

The 49-year-old businesswoman at the centre of the storm, known only as 'Linda', claimed she got pregnant by Fr Ciaran Dallat (51) before she miscarried at five weeks.

The north Belfast woman claimed that Fr Dallat, an assistant priest at St Peter's Cathedral just off Belfast's Falls Road, slept with her three or four times a week during the relationship, which began in September 2012 and lasted until April 2014.

During that time, the woman said she showered the priest with gifts worth £20,000. They included a two-week Nordic cruise that cost £3,700; meals at some of Belfast's most exclusive restaurants; designer clothes and top-of-the-range furnishings for his apartment near St Peter's Cathedral, in the heart of one of west Belfast's most deprived communities.

Linda claimed the affair only ended in April last year - two weeks after her mother died.

Last summer, the chair of the UN Human Rights Committee described Ireland’s human rights record, particularly in relation to women and children, as ‘quite a collection’.

In a withering assessment, Nigel Rodley, a leading expert in international human rights law, and a former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, said Ireland’s collection of human rights failures have gone on for a period that was hard ‘to imagine any state party tolerating’.

From Magdalene laundries and the mother-and-baby homes to child abuse and symphysiotomy, recent years have seen the UN repeatedly criticise Ireland’s human rights record on a range of fronts.

Click here to see a BBC video of the near riot that erupted at the cathedral at Osorno, Chile where protesters tried to stop the ordination of their new bishop, Juan Barros.

Barros is implicated in a cover up of sexual abuse.

The background is this. In a situation that's very similar to that of Fr. Maciel of the Legion of Christ, a Chilean priest, Fernando Karadima, played up to the wealthy conservative elements in Chilean Catholic society and established a kind of parallel Church, cultivating a group of followers, some of whom became priests - and one of whom is now the bishop of Osorno. And all the while this Fr. Karadima was sexually abusing boys and young men.

He had trained five bishops and dozens of priests, acting as a spiritual leader and father figure for young men who later accused him of molesting them. (The New York Times, Feb. 18, 2011)

Complaints and red flags popped up for many years, but Karadima's bishop ignored them, covered for Karadima, and in effect facilitated his crimes. The Vatican eventually sentenced Karadima to a "life or prayer and penance".

Karadima was not only the "mentor" of the new Bishop Barros, but Barros himself has been implicated in Karadima's crimes ...

While Barros himself is not accused of molestation, at least three credible victims say he was present when they were sexually molested by powerful Fr. Fernando Karadima in the 1980s and 90s.

In that post I mentioned the man who started this trouble, Fr. Karadima.

I just now discovered that Rod Dreher mentioned Karadima in an update to one of his posts in April of last year. It's worth quoting this update in full, as well as the observations made by Adam DeVille that Rod includes on what it would take to reform this problem, and (by implication) why we've gotten to where we are.

***

Here are comments from links posted in the comments section. First, someone put up this essay by Lee Podles, the orthodox Catholic writer who has done deep investigation on the scandal. Excerpt:

Francis is a fixer. Whenever a parish or diocese experience a disaster, a fixer is sent in, as O’Malley was to Boston. Francis is the papal fixer. He is changing the subject from sexual abuse by his charm, hominess, and willingness to let people indulge their minor vices without a censoring voice from the clergy.

A fixer differs from a reformer in that a fixer does not address the roots; he is not radical. He merely papers over the problem, merely puts a poultice on the cancer.

Karadima is a terribly abusive priest in Chile. The archbishop of Santiago told him to stop saying mass in Public. Karadima ignored the order, and photos of him saying mass were tweeted to tens of thousands of people.

AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

23 March, 2015

The Royal Commission has published the submissions of all governments, as well as non-government organisations and individuals expected to attend the public hearing on redress and civil litigation commencing this Wednesday 25 March 2015.

Invited participants will speak to their submissions at the public hearing, which is scheduled for three days.

All other submissions will be published shortly once procedural fairness and privacy checks are completed, subject to any confidentiality restrictions.

The submissions were received in response to a consultation paper on redress and civil litigation released by the Royal Commission on 30 January 2015.

Church refuses to comment on reports priest has been suspended after woman's affair claims

BY NEVIN FARRELL – 23 MARCH 2015

Catholic Church officials have refused to confirm or deny reports that a priest at the centre of a storm over allegations he had a sexual relationship with a woman and made her pregnant has been suspended.

Some Mass-goers at St Peter's Cathedral in Belfast last night said they believed Fr Ciaran Dallat (53), the assistant priest in the parish, had been suspended amid an investigation by Church bosses.

The woman who claimed she had an affair with Fr Dallat said she miscarried his child in July 2013 after a five-week pregnancy.

She also said she had showered him with £20,000 worth of gifts.

However, when asked about the alleged suspension, a spokesman for the Diocese of Down and Connor said: "The only statement is that provided earlier."

The late Welsh MP and solicitor Leo Abse is being investigated by police examining allegations of child abuse, according to reports.

The Sunday Times says documents from South Wales Police reveal that allegations against the long-serving politician, who died in 2008 aged 91, are being examined by another force.

The Sunday Times says it understands the investigation is centred on an alleged “politicians’ network” involving Abse’s close friend George Thomas, the former Labour Speaker of the House of Commons.

Last year it emerged that Thomas, Viscount Tonypandy, who died in 1997, was being investigated for sexually abusing a nine-year-old boy in Cardiff in the late 1960s. ...

The Sunday Times said it had also established that a Church of England review into historic sexual abuse has passed Abse’s name to detectives from Operation Fernbridge, a Metropolitan police inquiry into an alleged Westminster VIP paedophile network.

The newspaper said Dominic Walker, the former Bishop of Monmouth, has told senior clerics that Abse was named by three alleged adult survivors of abuse whom he counselled when he was vicar of Brighton in the 1980s.

It said Walker was questioned by Paul Butler, the Bishop of Durham who is leading the Church of England review, after the discovery of a book from 1991 in which he is quoted as describing counselling sessions with adult survivors.

“A number of survivors independently gave the name of a particular MP as being involved. I don’t believe there was any collusion in their stories,” Walker said.

The Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary community gathered in an emotional service Sunday afternoon, March 22, to acknowledge the pain and trauma inflicted on more than 100 women who were sexually violated by renowned theologian John Howard Yoder.

It was the first time AMBS publicly took responsibility for the abuse and neglect, which happened in the ’70s and ’80s and was first publicized by The Elkhart Truth in 1992.

It was also the first time leaders in the seminary publicly apologized to the women who were victimized.

“What was done to you, whether sinful acts of commission or omission, was grievously wrong,” current AMBS President Sara Wenger Shenk said during a lengthy apology. “It should never have been allowed to happen. We failed you. We failed the church. We failed the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

When the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse began its work, hundreds of adults who had grown up in the care of the State gave evidence about their experiences in the residential institutions.

A horrifying story began to emerge, as witness after witness gave consistent, compelling accounts of emotional and physical abuse, sexual abuse, cruelty and neglect.

The witnesses spoke on the understanding that the records of their testimony would be destroyed when the final report was published. Many of them had never spoken before about their experiences and some had never told anybody, even wives and husbands, about what they had endured.

Some still carried immense shame and were afraid that their histories could be accessed inappropriately.

Following the publication of the Ryan Report in 2009, Irish people were shocked, saddened and outraged by what the children had endured.

Case by case, disgraced institution by disgraced institution, our eyes are being opened. The royal commission charged with investigating how institutions deal with child sexual abuse is remaking our understanding of the people and places we entrust with the safekeeping of our children.

Reputations have crumbled before the measured march of the commission's inquiries. It has exposed to national scrutiny a rotten core of cover-ups and cowardice within some of our most respected organisations; the blind eye turned to molesters, the benefit of the doubt given to workmates, policies to prevent or redress abuse never practised, the bottom line placed above compassion for victims, and the guarding of reputation above everything.

Time and again we have been floored by the failure of authority figures to understand the nature of child sexual abuse and their legal obligations. Time and again, we have heard victims were disbelieved by those they turned to for help.

Perhaps former prime minister Julia Gillard understood what it would mean when she announced the royal commission in late 2012 – but for most the sweep of its investigations has been a revelation: from government homes and Christian orphanages to the Yeshiva colleges in Bondi and Melbourne, from Swimming Australia to the YMCA, from Pentacostal churches to the Satyananda Yoga Ashram, and from St Ann's Special School in Adelaide to Knox Grammar on Sydney's north shore. No one can say this has been a witch hunt against the Catholic Church or the former archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal Pell. Nor can we escape the conclusion that abuse is possible in any institution where people have power over the vulnerable, no matter its trusted reputation.

IPSWICH — A North Shore man who was sexually abused by a Roman Catholic priest while attending a summer camp in Ipswich in the early 1980s has now filed a civil suit.

The suit, filed last month, seeks damages from the retired Rev. Richard McCormick, 73, for assault, battery and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

The victim is identified in court papers as “John Doe,” but his attorney confirmed that it is the same victim who testified against McCormick during his criminal trial last year.

It comes three months after McCormick, a member of the Salesian order of priests, was sentenced to eight to 10 years in state prison following his conviction for raping the same victim back in the early 1980s at the former Sacred Heart Retreat in Ipswich.

It was last week KUAM first brought you the story about the arrest of a Fr. Luis Camacho, who was the priest for the San Dimas and San Dionisio churches. The priest was arrested on allegations of custodial interference after he was found with a 17-year-old female minor in a parked car at a beach in Agat. The teenager was supposed to be in school at the time. KUAM News has confirmed that one day after his arrest a report was filed by Deacon Stephen Martinez with Archbishop Anthony Apuron and Child Protective Services alleging that Fr. Luis had "sexual contact" with the minor.

"It is my belief, based on information that has been brought to my attention, that sexual abuse has occurred," stated Deacon Martinez.

In an interview with KUAM, Deacon Martinez says he was obligated to file the report based on the Archdiocese's Policy on Sexual Misconduct. The report alleges Fr. Luis illegally transported the 17-year-old girl from her school without her parent's permission. He went on to state that Fr. Luis had the minor hide as they drove away from the school."He then drove minor child to Subway and then to a remote beach in Agat and had sexual contact with her, and that the GPD had arrested Fr. Luis," Deacon Martinez wrote in the report.

In response to the report, Archdiocese of Agana's Sexual Abuse Response Coordinator Deacon Larry Claros told KUAM that, "a canonical investigation is underway and I have done my part as the SARC in coordinating the investigation. It now lies with the Attorney General's office."

A former Sinn Fein councillor has launched a scathing attack on the party in a dramatic resignation speech.

Brendan Curran, who later became an independent councillor, alleged Sinn Fein once forced him to "drop the issue" of an alleged paedophile priest because it was "negative campaigning".

He also accused the party of being operated in parts by a "small, domineering clique who try to remove opposition by gang mentality".

Mr Curran left Sinn Fein in November, 2013. He served on Newry and Mourne District council for 30 years and made the allegations during his resignation speech at a council meeting.

Speaking afterwards, Mr Curran said the sexual abuse allegations he had raised a number of years ago were of a historical nature.
"The priest is now dead," he said. "He worked in Co Down and internationally."

[The newly installed Osomo bishop, Juan Barros, will meet Monday with officials of the bishopric. As reported on soyosomo.cl, the meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. and the purpose is to coordinate the bishop's weekly schedule.]

[The new bishop of Osorno, Juan Barros, who took over Saturday amid protests and a big controversy over an alleged cover-up of sexual abuse by the priest Fernando Karadima, did not attend Sunday Mass at the San Mateo Cathedral. The Mass was attended by about 40 faithful who heard the ceremony held by the priest Mauricio Bello, according to the SoyTemuco portal.]

Last year, police said they were investigating allegations Mr Thomas - a Labour MP and ex-Commons Speaker who died in 1997 - abused a boy, aged 9.

The Sunday Times reported that the fresh claims are understood to have been passed to officers leading an investigation into an alleged "network of politicians".

It says a Church of England review into historical sexual abuse had also passed Mr Abse's name to detectives from Operation Fernbridge - a Met Police inquiry into alleged child abuse involving senior politicians.

Last year, South Wales Police confirmed officers were investigating claims against Mr Thomas - who later became Viscount Tonypandy - dating back to the 1960s and 1970s.

An alleged victim, who now lives in Australia, told the Mirror newspaper he had been raped by the late MP.

Viscount Tonypandy, a Methodist preacher, held the role of Secretary of State for Wales from 1968 to 1970 and was Commons Speaker between 1976 and 1983.

["Since his election we have put all our hope in Pope Francis" is the prayer that opens the statement that this week has launched in the media by Juan Carlos Cruz, James Hamilton and José Andrés Murillo. What unites these three men of such different personalities and lives is their contempt for impunity, extreme courage and a deep sense of justice and responsibility.

They were victims of Father Karadima and decided to break the silence of conservative Santiago de Chile to unmask the powerful elites who protected the Chilean priest. It has been a struggle against gravity, against a robust system whose roots were securely anchored in the highest social and economic spheres of Chile. A hypocrisy that serves as the foundation for the more conservative wing of his country, he has been hit hard. And they have done with one objective: that justice is done and that the sexual abuse they are victims and survivors, he never exercised against any other child or adolescent.]

Yesterday, Rolando mentioned in a comment here that he misses hearing from Jerry Slevin. I told Rolando that I suspect he's far from the only reader of this blog who watches for an opportunity to read anything Jerry writes, and I reminded him that Jerry posts continuously at his Christian Catholicism site. Here's the opening section of a posting Jerry has just made there about the revolt of Catholics in Chile after Pope Francis appointed Juan Barros, who has been accused of helping other priests cover up abuse of children, the new bishop of Osnoro:

Pope Francis is publicly and disappointingly increasing the gap between his noble words and his less noble deeds. As he faced a major Catholic revolt in Chile over his inexplicable appointment of a bishop allegedly linked to the abuse scandal there, he and his staff carefully avoided publicly acknowledging the Chilean revolt, a major turning point. Instead, in another subject changing whirlwind trip, to Naples this time, the pope pontificated on the usual “safer suspects” like the Mafia, immigration, gossip and poor workers. His compliant media entourage avoided pressing the Chilean revolt subject with the pope and his media machine.

Francis’ opportunistic “media groupies” may love him, but Latino parents seem to have reached their limit. Chilean parents understand, better apparently than the celibate Vatican and some of the seemingly clueless childless among the media, Nelson Mandela’s reported wise words, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children.” ...

The video at the head of the posting is the You Tube video to which Jerry's link above points, uploaded by a user named soyosorno. What strikes me about the video: all those hierarchical figures and priests, all those men, marching with stolid determination through crowds shouting at them, in some cases, engaging them, even pulling on their sleeves, asking that they stop the charade.

That they stop and listen.

They do not intend to stop. They do not intend to listen. They intend to carry out their program, no matter what. No matter what the people of God, who are obviously . . . well, energized here . . . say to them. No matter how many members of the people of God, who constitute the church, ask them to engage in respectful, meaningful conversation with us.

Hagiographies of Jorge Mario Bergoglio may soon obliterate what was written before the media-created Pope Francis Superstar. This is an effort to preserve this information along with some background as to what took place during the Argentine dictatorship and why. Part II is here.

Catholic Hierarchs Support the Junta

All European fascist governments and movements, except the latter German Nazis, were supported by the Catholic Church.

Austrian Bishop Hudal’s ratline concentrated on assisting highly-placed German and Austrian officers to escape post-war prosecution but others paid their way into the ratline. War criminals such as Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele, Franz Stangl, Alois Brunner and Walter Rauff sailed from Genoa to Barcelona and on to Buenos Aires. (Michael Phayer, Pius XII, the Holocaust, and the Cold War)

Numerically, the largest ratline was operated by Vatican agent and Croatian Ustasha priest, Krunoslav Draganovic, and “reveals the direct involvement of Pope Pius XII himself,” according to Phayer. The Catholic Ustasha executed, tortured, starved, buried alive and burned to death 750,000 Croatian and Bosnian Serbs, Jews and Roma between 1941 and 1945 with the full knowledge of Pius XII. After the collapse of the Nazi-puppet Ustasha regime, Draganovic established escape routes for Croatian war criminals, mostly to South America.

Juan Peron, who had trained under Mussolini, came to power in Argentina in the spring of 1943 assisted by Fifth Column activity organized by SS-Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg. In 1946, the archbishop of Freiburg told a U.S. military interrogator that he “considered the SS to be the most respectable of the Nazi Party organizations.” (Charles Higham, American Swastika: The Shocking Story of Nazi Collaborators in Our Midst from 1933 to the Present Day)

“The Vatican, naturally, backed Peron completely.” (Phayer)

Peron welcomed these war criminals to Argentina. “An American diplomat working in the Buenos Aires embassy wrote to the State Department deploring the fact that ‘the Vatican and Argentina [are conniving] to get guilty people to haven in latter country.’” (John Moors Cabot, June 11, 1947, cited by Phayer)

“Investigators of the central war criminal authority in Germany estimated 9,000 war criminals escaped to South America, including Croatians, Ukrainians, Russians and western Europeans who aided the Nazi slaughter. Most, perhaps as many as 5,000, went to Argentina….Of particular interest to the investigators were the passports provided by the Vatican.”

Hagiographies of Jorge Mario Bergoglio may soon obliterate what was written before the media -created Pope Francis Superstar. This is an effort to preserve this information along with some background as to what took place during the Argentine dictatorship. Part I is here.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio Elected Pope March 13, 2013

TalkingPointsMemo, March 13:

“…..Bergoglio almost never granted media interviews, limiting himself to speeches from the pulpit, and was reluctant to contradict his critics, even when he knew their allegations against him were false, said Rubin [co-author of The Jesuit].

That attitude was burnished as human rights activists tried to force him to answer uncomfortable questions about what Church officials knew and did about the dictatorship’s abuses after the 1976 coup.

Many Argentines remain angry over the church’s acknowledged failure to openly confront a regime that was kidnapping and killing thousands of people as it sought to eliminate ‘subversive elements’ in society. It’s one reason why more than two-thirds of Argentines describe themselves as Catholic, but fewer than 10 percent regularly attend Mass.

Under Bergoglio’s leadership, Argentina’s bishops issued a collective apology in October 2012 for the Church’s failures to protect its flock. But the statement blamed the era’s violence in roughly equal measure on both the junta and its enemies.

‘Bergoglio has been very critical of human rights violations during the dictatorship, but he has always also criticized the leftist guerrillas; he doesn’t forget that side,’ Rubin said….

Bergoglio twice invoked his right under Argentine law to refuse to appear in open court, and when he eventually did testify in 2010, his answers were evasive, human rights attorney Myriam Bregman said.
At least two cases directly involved Bergoglio. One examined the torture of two of his Jesuit priests — Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics — who were kidnapped in 1976 from the slums where they advocated liberation theology. Yorio accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to the death squads by declining to tell the regime that he endorsed their work. Jalics refused to discuss it after moving into seclusion in a German monastery.

Both men were freed after Bergoglio took extraordinary, behind-the-scenes action to save them — including persuading dictator Jorge Videla’s family priest to call in sick so that he could say Mass in the junta leader’s home, where he privately appealed for mercy. His intervention likely saved their lives, but Bergoglio never shared the details until Rubin interviewed him for the 2010 biography.

Pope Francis is publicly and disappointingly increasing the gap between his noble words and his less noble deeds. As he faced a major Catholic revolt in Chile over his inexplicable appointment of a bishop allegedly linked to the abuse scandal there, he and his staff carefully avoided publicly acknowledging the Chilean revolt, a major turning point. Instead, in another subject changing whirlwind trip, to Naples this time, the pope pontificated on the usual “safer suspects” like the Mafia, immigration, gossip and poor workers. His compliant media entourage avoided pressing the Chilean revolt subject with the pope and his media machine.

Francis’ opportunistic “media groupies” may love him, but Latino parents seem to have reached their limit. Chilean parents understand, better apparently than the celibate Vatican and some of the seemingly clueless childless among the media, Nelson Mandela’s reported wise words, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children.”

As the scandal cover-up revelations evidently contributed to the ex-Pope’s hasty exit, Pope Francis is facing, badly, his own out of control abuse scandal crisis recently. It is becoming increasingly clear that neither any pope nor any limited group of bishops can cure a Catholic Church suffering seriously from pervasive sexual abuse scandals. The pope should follow Good Pope John’s experienced and wise lead and convene a general ecumenical council as promptly as practicable. No pope alone, even an infallible one, can repair the continuing damage, especially a pope whose record as cardinal and pope on holding priests and bishops accountable on credible claims of sex abuse and related cover-ups is as questionable as Pope Francis’ record appears to be.

An online video of the unprecedented Chilean protest shows the Catholic crowd throwing objects at Bishop Barros, pushing and shoving him and other bishops (some visibly frightened), and trying to stop him from entering St. Matthew’s Cathedral, despite strong security measures. See the extraordinary pictures here,

While Barros himself is not accused of molestation, at least three credible victims say he was present when they were sexually molested by powerful Fr. Fernando Karadima in the 1980s and 90s. “I hold the Pope responsible,” said Juan Carlos Cruz, a 51-year-old journalist who is one of the accusers of Barros. “This contradicts everything the Pope has said. He was aware of the situation but named [Barros as bishop] anyway,” Cruz told reporters. “We were accustomed to getting slapped in the face by the Catholic Church [in Chile], but getting slapped by the Pope himself is the saddest part. …”, Cruz reportedly added. (my emphasis)

As the Sunday People leads the way in uncovering a sickening network of child abusers in Westminster, we look at how the cases are connected

Since Labour MP Tom Watson stood up in the Commons in October 2012 to ask Prime Minister David Cameron to probe a high-powered ­paedophile ring with links to Number 10, the Sunday People has led the way.

We have produced a string of exclusive stories tracking the progress of Operation Fairbank and its offshoots.

Shocking revelations about the Elm Guest House dominated the early part of our investigation as traumatised victims came forward.

A new Catholic bishop of Arundel and Brighton has been appointed after his predecessor resigned.

Bishop Richard Moth will be installed in his new role in May.

The previous bishop, the Rt Rev Kieran Conry, stepped down last September after he said he had been "unfaithful" to his promises as a Catholic priest and brought "shame" on the diocese, which covers Sussex and Surrey.

An inquiry into his resignation is still ongoing, the diocese said.

Bishop Moth, who will leave his current role as Bishop of the Forces, was born in Chingola, Zambia, in 1958 and brought up in Kent.

Former Archbishop Kenneth (Seraphim) Storheim escaped being defrocked at the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church spring session.

Storheim was found guilty of one count of sexually molesting a young boy, but cleared of a charge of molesting his twin brother, in incidents that happened nearly 30 years ago and sentenced to eight months in jail on Jan. 24, 2014

"In closed session, the Holy Synod reviewed a number of clergy cases, including that of Archbishop Seraphim," said a Synod of Bishops spring session report. "Having thoroughly reviewed the report of the Synodal Commission in this regard, procedures and a date for the convening a spiritual court were reviewed, with a committee of three Bishops appointed to develop appropriate procedures."

LEO ABSE, the flamboyant, late Welsh Labour MP, is being investigated by police on suspicion of child abuse.

Documents from South Wales police reveal that allegations against the long-serving politician, who died in 2008 aged 91, are being examined by another force.

The investigation is understood to centre on an alleged “politicians’ network” involving Abse’s close friend George Thomas, the former Labour Speaker of the House of Commons.

Last year it emerged that Thomas, who died in 1997, was being investigated for raping a nine-year-old boy in Cardiff in the late 1960s.

Scotland Yard refused to confirm or deny whether it was involved in the Abse inquiry.

The Sunday Times has also established that a Church of England review into historic sexual abuse has passed Abse’s name to detectives from Operation Fernbridge, a Metropolitan police inquiry into an alleged Westminster VIP pedophile network.

A Christian minister teaches churches to guard against pedophiles — like his father

By Peter Smith / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In his growing work of consulting with churches on matters of sexual abuse, Jimmy Hinton says he hears a common refrain.

If a devoted member of a congregation is accused, members will give all kinds of reasons “it just can’t be him,” he says.

The accused is so kind and nice. He’s a family man. He never cusses.

“At the end of that,” Mr. Hinton says, he tells them: “You just described in great detail my father.”

The father, John Wayne Hinton, whom he watched with admiration as he preached the gospel from the pulpit of Somerset Church of Christ, a small evangelical congregation where the elder Hinton was minister for 27 years until 2001.

It is interesting to note that since the advent of the Internet and the invention of the web browser, some statistics suggest that rape rates have actually declined.

In fact, some claim that states in the U.S. that adopted the Internet more quickly have seen a greater and faster decline of rape than other states. For many people, this makes a lot of sense: if you are the kind of guy who is inclined to want to rape a woman, perhaps sitting at home in front of your laptop more or less gets it out of your system, making you less inclined to commit rape.

But I’m skeptical that easy access to porn is what has resulted in less rape. We should not confuse correlation with causation. That is, just because two things are correlated, it does not follow that one caused the other (the rooster is not the cause of the sun’s rising).

The supposed decline in rape rates could be due to a number of factors, like greater measures being put in place to protect women, or, more education about rape.

Second—and this is a big one—the claim that rape is actually on the decline, as reported by the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), may simply be false. Many organizations have criticized their findings, saying they were based on poor data collection. The National Women’s Study, the National College Women Sexual Victimization Study, the National Violence Against Women Study, and the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence survey all report higher rates of rape and sexual assault than the NCVS.

I am of the opinion that the evidence points, rather, to the opposite: not that men who watch porn all become rapists—that is patently false, no one is arguing that—but that porn shapes how men see women, and when you have a whole culture of men who are fed on porn, you create a culture where women become sexual commodities, which is an ideal environment for sexual abuse to flourish.

Many religious congregations have been seeking help to navigate new state laws requiring more training on child abuse and mandating more people report suspected abuse.

Some want to know what the law requires of volunteers and paid staff. Others want training in recognizing the symptoms of abuse. Others have a crisis and need immediate help — what to do about a new allegation of abuse or a sex offender who wants to attend church.

Such growing awareness is good, but only a start, said Michelle Snyder, executive director of the Pittsburgh Pastoral Institute, an interfaith agency that provides counseling services and training for religious organizations.

“There’s a way the legislation is unhelpful if it takes our eyes off the spirit and onto the details,” she said, “as opposed to these larger conversations of, ‘Who do we really want to be, and what is our theology of safe church, and how do we create havens?’ ”

A former leading IRA man, who was a security chief for X Factor boss, Simon Cowell has accused Sinn Fein of helping to cover up the sexual abuse of "hundreds" of schoolboys by a now-deceased priest.

Brendan Curran, a former Irish Army-trained sniper - who was jailed aged 18 in 1973 for 15 years for attempting to murder a British soldier - made the sensational claims as he announced his resignation from Newry and Mourne District Council at a meeting last week.

Mr Curran said he was prevented 10 years ago from exposing the allegations by a leading well-known Sinn Fein figure.

Speaking to the Sunday Independent after the tumultuous council meeting, Mr Curran said: "This priest is dead now, but he was in every school in the Newry area for years and abused children in every one of them. People have been coming forward."

"I raised it with the Republican movement 10 years ago and was told to drop it; it was a negative story, to drop it; it was a negative issue."

March 21, 2015

Pope Francis has appointed Bishop Richard Moth, currently Bishop of the Forces, as Bishop of Arundel & Brighton.

He will be the fifth Bishop of Arundel & Brighton. Bishop Moth was ordained a priest in 1982 and served as a priest in parishes in the Archdiocese of Southwark including acting as Vicar General and Chancellor of the Archdiocese before being ordained Bishop of the Forces in September 2009. In addition to his role as Bishop of the Forces, he is Chair of Governors at St Mary's University, Twickenham, Liaison Bishop for Prisons, Episcopal Advisor to the National Catholic Scout Fellowship and holds a brief on Mental Health on behalf of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales.

Bishop Moth said: "It is a great privilege to have been appointed by Pope Francis as the new Bishop of Arundel & Brighton and I am very conscious of the trust that has been placed in me. In these last fifty years since the foundation of the Diocese, so much has been done to build up the Church and in the proclamation of the Gospel and, with God's help, I look to guide and serve the Diocese to that same end. "

Six months after Kieran Conry’s resignation, Bishop of the Forces appointed to lead Arundel and Brighton

21 March 2015 by Christopher Lamb

A new Bishop of Arundel and Brighton has been appointed to succeed Kieran Conry, who resigned last September having admitted to being unfaithful to his vow of celibacy.

Pope Francis today named Bishop Richard Moth, currently Bishop of the Forces, to lead the diocese which this year celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Bishop Emeritus Kieran Conry resigned after a newspaper revealed his intimate friendship with a married woman. Although he denied a sexual relationship with that individual he admitted he had had an affair with another woman that lasted six years.

Bishop Moth, 56, will be installed on 28 May in time to celebrate the diocese’s Golden Jubilee Mass which will take place at the Amex Stadium in Brighton, on 5 July.

Alongside his forces role, the bishop is Chairman of Governors at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, the episcopal liaison for prisons and holds a brief on mental health issues for the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. He is a priest of the Archdiocese of Southwark - where he held senior positions such as vicar general and chancellor - and has been an Oblate of the Order of St Benedict for over 30 years.

SOUTHERN MAINE – For victims of sexual abuse, the process of healing can take years, even decades. And some survivors may live the remainder of their lives without reaching closure.

Children who are molested are taught by abusers to keep secrets. Or they are told they will be in trouble if they reveal what happened.

These are just some of the challenges faced by sexually abused children, said Julia Davidson, a sexual assault response team program manager for Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine. Davidson said she and her co-workers help survivors at all stages – by being in the hospital immediately after an incident or guiding a person through the trial process. The organization works to help survivors reach their goals, including providing access to mental health services and helping law enforcement officials prosecute abusers.

Davidson said many people call the SARSSM hotline and disclose their abuse for the first time. The most important for any person to whom abuse is being disclosed by a victim, said Davidson, is to believe them.

“The first thing we do is we tell them that we believe them and that what happened is not their fault,” Davidson said. “What we know from our work is that a primary indicator of long term public health is that a youngster is believed and supported when they try to disclose for the first time. When they're told to get over it and move on … keeping it secret can cause longstanding trauma.”

["Barros, out!" shouted the people who protested at the ordination of Bishop Juan Barros of the Osomo diocese in southern Chile. The town, located 850 kilometers south of the capital of Santiago, had never seen so many people protesting outside of the cathedral. More than 650 people showed up to protest, according to estimates by police.]